In A Car with a Beautiful Boy
by we were here
Summary: Curly turned his head and looked at Tim, really looked at him, and wondered if this was what it'd come down to, if dying was the only way you got anywhere in life. It's 1967; Tim Shepard is out of jail, and Curly will do anything to gain his brother's respect, no matter what the cost.
1. What You Deserve

**Summary:** It's 1967; Tim Shepard is finally coming home after serving a year at the state prison in McAlester for a crime he swears he didn't commit, and Curly has anticipated that his life will go back to normal once his brother is home. But just because time has passed doesn't mean everything stays the same…

**Disclaimer:** I do not own _The Outsiders._

**Author's Note: **_In A Car with a Beautiful Boy_ is the rewritten version of my first Shepard story I posted on this site years ago called _Shattered Glass_. If you've been on here long enough you might remember it (hopefully you don't, since it was poorly written and harshly abandoned within three months and eight chapters, ha). Thankfully _Shattered Glass_ has been deleted since June 2010, but the plot has stayed with me since. So much has happened to me in the past-almost-three years that there are some situations I've wanted characters to live through, and by rewriting _Shattered Glass_ - exploring Tim's, Curly's, and Angela's world again - it's not only given me the opportunity to recognize my faults but to grow and improve as a writer as well.

So far, I've written the first half of _In A Car…,_ which has sixteen chapters. I've yet to pound out the remaining chapters, due to school and the holidays and moving to a new house (gah), but aim to finish up soon - the quicker, the better. This is more of a prologue than a first chapter, but reviews are lovely if you have the time to leave one; I hope you enjoy reading _In A Car with a Beautiful Boy_ as much as I've enjoyed writing it!

* * *

"_I've watched sixty seven people die, and at the moment of truth I looked into their eyes and I knew - and they knew - they got what they deserved. But what if that's not what happens, if you don't get what you deserve?"_

_- Dexter_

xxx

If you asked someone what word would define Curly Shepard the best, they would probably answer with _stupid_ - but if anything, over the last year he had proved this accusation wrong. He was street smart; he knew the score like it was imprinted on the back of his hand and could count how many times the counselor at the state penitentiary in McAlester sighed in defeat at not getting a word past him.

He could remember the exact date when the first eviction notice showed up in the mailbox, and then the ones following after that. _Dumbass _was a word that Tim liked to call him often, Angela throwing in_ jackass_ every once in a while to show that she actually cared enough to call him something other than his birth name, Charles, which he hated. In response to this, Curly would just grin and say "took you long enough", which resulted in either a) Tim punching him in the arm hard enough to leave a bruise and telling him to "back the fuck off lest you wanna get hurt", or b) Angela running off in a huff.

The difference between the two brothers' minds was simple: Tim had the memory of an elephant, remembering the smallest details no matter how much he didn't want to, while Curly had the hardest trouble retaining the simplest of facts. By the time the younger brother was in first grade, he was far behind, barely managing to spell his first and last names; and by the time he was sixteen, after waking up the next morning in someone's backyard - two blocks from his own house - he'd vowed to himself that he would be able to find his way home the next time, drunk as he was.

Of course, being street smart had many disadvantages. Curly's poor grades in school showed it: he barely found an ounce of patience to pay attention, and the way he held his head too high as he walked down the halls showed to anybody watching how much he could care less about an education. His blue eyes, wide and glaring, would dance with ignorance at the sight of a greaser girl's short skirt, mouth set into the infamous sneer he'd perfected from years of watching Tim do so.

His love for parties didn't help that much either, but who was Curly to blame? Buck's was just an easy way to escape his brother's shouting, his parents' constant fighting and Angela's mood swings. Alcohol was one of his closest friends - except that Curtis kid, Pony, but he wasn't allowed to do jackshit without his brothers hounding on him about it - which left Curly to his own devices. Usually he'd just go on by his lonesome or drag one of the Shepard gang round, but most of the time, everyone always gave the same excuse - they were, apparently, "too fucking busy to hang around with punk kids" like him.

As Curly sat in the back of his fourth period English class, taking a test on some book he never read, he almost regretted popping his head into the roadhouse the night before.

Almost.

The bell rang, dismissing class, and the headache he'd woken up with, once a dull throbbing, was now making his brain pound against his skull. His least favorite subject had finally ended, and Curly, proud of his lack of effort, grabbed his measly pile of books and walked through the maze of desks to the front of the room. His uncompleted test fell on top of all the others as he sauntered out into the packed hall, already agonizing over his decision to come to school.

Curly was walking through a group of Socs when he saw the flash of auburn hair amidst the crowd. The color, still half-bleached from that terrible dye job in Windrixvillle, belonged to none other than Ponyboy Curtis - exactly who, Curly thought as he made his way over, was looking for.

The hallway began to thin out, but he still had to yell Pony's name over the drone of voices. Hearing his name, Ponyboy turned around from his locker, confused, resisting the temptation to roll his green eyes.

Shaking his head - in disbelief or anger, Curly couldn't tell - Pony turned his attention back to entering his combination, three numbers Curly had lazily memorized in case he ever needed to hide something and had no place to put it. Bored, Curly yawned and leaned against the row of lockers, watching his friend shove a book inside and take out another one.

"What is it now, Shepard?" Pony asked, slamming the rusty door shut in his friend's face. Although he was shorter than Curly, he walked faster than the other boy did and was amused at how Curly was out of breath by the time they reached the front doors.

The crisp October air greeted them as they walked outside and left the stale air behind for the smell of burning leaves and car exhaust. When they were a safe distance away from the main entrance, Ponyboy sighed.

"What do you want?" he said. His cheeks were flushed; the tips of his ears turned the slightest shade of pink. There was a bite to the wind and Curly shoved his hands deep inside his jacket pockets, glad he'd worn it this morning.

It was fifth period and lunch had just started: the hippies ate in the courtyard, the Socs and middle-classes crammed themselves into the cafeteria, and the greasers hung around the DX or The Strip.

"You gotta light or not, Curtis?" Curly put his hand on the hood of a car that wasn't his, drumming his fingers on the red metal. He took out a cigarette and offered one to Ponyboy, who politely refused. Although he was still highly intimidated by the older boy and knew to never mess with a Shepard - especially with one currently incarcerated and the other fresh out of the reformatory - Ponyboy obliged and handed his lighter over.

Curly lit up his cigarette and took a long drag, surveying the parking lot for any familiar faces that belonged to his brother's gang. After school the parking lot was where everything went down, from gang fights to drug deals to gossiping girls. Besides the two hoods, it was pretty much vacant besides a few stragglers who were mulling around a Mustang a few parking spaces down.

"Sorry about your brother, Curly," Ponyboy said, not sure what else there was to contribute.

Curly shrugged the makeshift apology off - it wasn't like a few words would bring Tim back anytime soon. "Don't worry about it, man. Tim will take care of himself. Always have, always will." His eyes were distant when he said this, a faraway look in them.

Ponyboy nodded, shifting from foot to foot. "How long does he have left?"

"Two weeks," Curly answered, his voice a higher pitch than it should've been. He didn't want to sound excited, but it was hard to hide.

"Well, Shepard," Pony said, stepping on a leaf and crunching it beneath his shoe, "I gotta go. You, uh, goin' back inside?"

Curly smirked around his cigarette and shook his head 'no'. "Nah, I'm gonna stay out here for a while, maybe go back in later. It depends."

Ponyboy took this as a cue to leave and did so, going back to the place from where they'd left moments earlier. Curly popped an elbow up on the car's hood, took one last inhale of his dying cigarette and then tossed the butt to the ground, grinding it into the asphalt with the heel of his boot.

It was the middle of the day and Curly was exhausted, drained from the cold, gray weather and having to adjust to the heavy amount of coursework he'd missed for skipping so many classes. He could hear Tim laughing at him, a dull buzzing sound in his ears, telling him that the more he didn't show up, the more lost he would become. And as much as he wanted to, Curly couldn't blame anyone but himself; sometimes he could be as ditzy as those broads Tim brought home.

Sighing, Curly glared at the sky and decided that school could wait. After all, he was a Shepard, and if Tim could do whatever he wanted, so could Curly. Thinking this, he crossed the parking lot and kept on walking. Towards home or fate, he still wasn't sure which one he wanted to encounter first.

xxx

"Last time I'm gonna say this, Shepard, and then the deal is off. You gonna call somebody or what?"

The steel bench Tim was sitting on was cold and uncomfortable and the material of his orange jumpsuit, along with the stubble on his jaw from not shaving, was irritating him. There were shadows under his eyes that weren't there last week from worrying about how his second-in-command was handling the gang in his absence, and once again Tim remembered that he wasn't the only one in the room.

"Uh, yeah," he said. For the first time that evening, a small smile of satisfaction spread across the officer's face and Tim's frown deepened.

Each night, he was given five minutes to call whomever he wanted but never did. He preferred to read Angela's letters - eight to ten pages of her pouring her heart out to him like he was her therapist, signed with a _Love you, Ang_. And, if he was lucky, a small dab of her perfume on the pink stationery.

The officer left and Tim got up from the bench, his stomach empty and head swimming. He reached for the phone and pressed it to his ear, dialed the phone number he'd known since he was five and waited for the other line to pick up.

It took less than three rings for him to hear another sound besides his breathing.

"Ang, it's me," he started, "listen -"

" _Tim?" _Angela interrupted, sounding surprised; her voice was high-pitched and squeaky, what Tim imagined a mouse's to be if it could speak. She sounded so close to him, yet in reality she was whole cities away.

"- I need to talk to Curly. Put him on the phone, Angela."

"_Curly?_"

"Jesus Christ, kid, you gotta repeat every damn thing I say?"

"Well, he ain't here right now."

Fuck, if he didn't sound desperate already then he sure as hell did now. "Lemme talk to him, Ang. I gotta talk to him."

"Tim, I just said he ain't here right now! What do you want me to do, go out and look for him?"

_Goddamn it,_ Tim thought, rubbing at his eyes. "Angela, you better give Curly the phone right now or I'm gonna make sure you starve for a whole fucking week when I get outta here."

She huffed, cursed something along the sides of _shit_ and repeated, "Like I said, _he ain't here!_ What don't you understand?"

"I…" he said, and then found himself stopping. "Fine, can you tell him something?"

There was rustling in the background, drawers opening and paper rustling.

"Tell him to leave Wade alone, alright? It's my shit to deal with when I get out." He heard Angela write this down, mumbling to herself. "And don't let him get away with anything stupid, Ang. We don't need the state on our asses anymore than they are now."

"Okay," she said, and he let out a breath he didn't know he was holding in, relieved.

"Thanks, girlie," he said, "you're not so bad after all."

"Shut up, Tim," she growled, and hung up before he could say goodbye. He put the phone back in the cradle just as keys jingled outside the door and the knob rattled.

The officer stepped back into the room, cuffs in hand. "You done?" he asked.

"Yeah," Tim said, making sure to catch the other man's eye, "I am."


	2. If Their Hearts Were Dying That Fast

_The whispers that it won't last roll up and down the pews  
but if their hearts were dying that fast,  
they'd have done the same as you  
I'd have done the same as you._

"Christ on a cracker, Curly, put that goddamn thing out already!"

Tim's return had been difficult for all three of the Shepards, and Curly was constantly struggling to adjust: In the mornings, he'd stumble into the bathroom half-asleep and reach for his toothbrush, only to find himself narrowly missing the opportunity to put toothpaste on Tim's instead. Other times, he'd come home and, standing in the foyer, notice a pair of shoes by the door that weren't his, or a jacket on the back of a kitchen chair he'd never worn. Tim was neat, and this resulted in a massive clean-out of the bedroom they shared, including the closet and bureau drawers, once he'd come home.

Curly leaned up on his elbows at the sound of the door opening, only to sink back into the mattress. Tim was standing in the doorway, arms crossed over his bare chest, hair wet from a shower. He had on a pair of jeans that Curly had borrowed once or twice - he could tell from the bloodstains on the front pocket - and was annoyed beyond all hell.

"C'mon, Curl, get the fuck up already. I got shit to do and you gotta go to school," he ordered. Curly rolled his eyes and took another drag of his cigarette, not moving.

"Who the hell says I gotta get up?" he asked. "'Sides, I ain't goin' to school."

"You are if you don't want your head smashed in," Tim sneered. "Now get the hell up already!"

"Make me."

Tim must've absolutely had it right then because within three long strides he'd pulled Curly up off of the bed by his hair, thrown him onto the floor, and ground out the cigarette on the headboard. He stood over his little brother, amusement replacing the annoyance on his twisted face at his brother's short-lived pain.

Smirking, Curly blinked away stars, his eyes wide. "So, what's on the agenda for today, Timmy?"

"You're gonna be on it if you don't get your lazy ass up already."

Curly scratched the back of his neck with a few knuckles and got up. Hastily, he dressed and brushed his teeth faster than he'd done in awhile, his footsteps pounding against the wooden stairs as he walked into the kitchen.

Angela sat at the kitchen table with a bowl of untouched cereal in front of her. Tim was standing across from her, hands gripping the back of a chair, silently fuming at the blue bruise on her left cheek.

"Tim, Ma wants you to take out the trash before you go," she said, eyes downcast.

"Ma can wait," he said. "Who hit you, Ang?" he asked. Angela didn't say anything, just kept staring bleakly into her cereal, and Tim asked again, his voice louder this time.

"It was Donny, wasn't it?" She sniffled, nodding, and he swore. He slammed his hand on the counter once, and then a second time, the loud_ crack_ of bone meeting Formica the only noise in the kitchen. Curly's toes curled into his socks, the way Tim recoiled a few seconds later and glared at him.

"The fuck're you starin' at?"

"Nothin'." Curly couldn't look anywhere else; the purple was slowly expanding, swallowing up the pale skin of Tim's hand.

"Let's go already," Tim snapped, adding a softer "c'mon, Ang" before stomping out the front door and into the morning, Curly on his heels. The door slammed, and Angela scrambled out a few minutes later, but Curly hadn't bothered to notice - he was too preoccupied by how Tim had acted to notice anything else.

Once they were all inside the car, Tim backed out of the driveway and peeled down the road, dirt flying up behind them. They were fifteen minutes late, the speedometer a flicker of red. By the time they took a left turn on Sutton, the speedometer was at eighty-five, the car silent besides the static of Tim switching the dial every five seconds to a different radio station.

As they pulled into the parking lot of Will Rogers, Curly could feel the anxiety building, the adrenaline rush he got right before a fight. Tim reached the curb, stopping the car. Angela got out first and left with a simple "bye" and a wave, the two brothers staring out the windshield, neither one wanting to bring up what they'd seen.

"Well?" Tim's voice was loud over the rushing sound of blood pounding in Curly's ears. The late bell rang, off in the distance, and Curly knew he should've left when his sister did, but he didn't want to leave, not yet.

"I can't pick you up today, and Angie already told me she's gonna take the bus," Tim said.

Curly sucked in as much air as he could, his lungs aching, and tried not to sound disappointed when he said, "Yeah, sure, whatever. I'll walk home."

The corners of Tim's lips curved up, like he was going to smile, except the expression didn't quite reach his eyes. He turned to face his brother and opened his mouth, as if he was going to say something, and then closed it.

Reluctant, Curly got of the car and felt Tim's eyes burning holes in the space between his shoulder blades the whole walk to the front doors.


	3. Out in the Dark

_Your teeth believe that teeth are for tearing  
tear into me and the scent of you sweating  
smells good to me, as long as we keep in our clothes  
and out in the dark, the world is still rolling._

Tim, being the kind of person that liked to rub salt in the wound, knew that Curly hated school and, therefore, brought up the topic often.

Over and over, no matter how many times Curly said this, the oldest Shepard would sigh and shake his head while trying to light a cigarette or mess with the radio outside in the parking lot after school. This usually happened when Tim was having one of his (very rare) good days and decided to pick his brother and sister up instead of having them trek through downtown or ride the bus home.

Curly would reply with a groan, flopping against the backseat of whatever car Tim was driving that week, glaring at the back of his brother's head until he wound up pulling over on the shoulder of the road. That was when the fights would start.

The fights consisted of Curly bitching and Tim's responses, well thought-out and strategized to give the harshest blow. Curly's problems, in Tim's mind, were as dramatic as Angel's love life: his locker never opened, the teachers gave him detentions for more than half the shit he _actually _pulled, the school field trips were a waste of time, and more than once he'd been denied participation in a science lab because the teacher feared he would cause an explosion of some sort.

Tim would retort with how damn hard he was trying to hold the family together because Ma and their stepfather sure as fuck couldn't, and how his brother should take his head out of his ass and stop doing stupid shit that would get him sent back to the JDC, and, sometimes, he'd go as far as comparing Curly to that Curtis kid.

Curly didn't like how Tim always compared him to Ponyboy, and that made him loathe his friend a little more each time they hung out. Curly was convinced that Pony was a genius, and to him, it was downright rude that Tim would bash his own brother just to make him as upset as he was.

Tim was ashamed, repulsed at how little coursework Curly turned in. When he was alone at night, sitting on the front porch or swallowing down shots at Buck's, he'd blame Curly's failing grades on his own lack of upbringing. Although he had graduated, he'd repeated sophomore English twice, and didn't want Curly to end up doing the same.

Each time he repeated this mantra, Tim noticed Curly pulling out of the conversation, bit by bit, until Tim stopped talking. At first, he'd thought that Curly's silences were because he'd finally made his point and it'd stuck, but soon realized that his brother was as tired of hearing this as he was saying it. Then they would merge back into traffic and the argument would be pushed aside, like nothing had ever happened.

When the outline of Will Rogers finally disappeared from the rearview mirror, Tim exhaled, his nerves frayed. This wasn't the first time he'd been part of a drug deal and it sure wouldn't be the last, but he was an adult now, and being one came with the responsibility of knowing that for all the future crimes he committed, the sentences would be longer and the visitation rights shortened. He'd heard stories of convicts like him who'd gotten out of the cooler and ended up being thrown back into it because they'd make the simple mistake of trusting the wrong guy.

If he got caught, he'd be sent back for at least a year, minimum, and he knew he couldn't put Angela and Curly through that all over again. Part of him wanted to back down, and the other part wanted to throw up. Without another thought, his foot pressed the pedal down and the car jolted forwards, entering the West side.

The last time he'd been on this side of Tulsa, where the Socs and most of the middle-class lived, he'd been arrested for breaking-and-entering. The breaking-and-entering idea was solely Wade Hamilton's and caused the scar on Tim's forearm, running from his elbow to his wrist, from the glass of a vase he'd knocked over.

The houses, made of brick or colored siding, were spread out, and unlike Tim's neighborhood had long, curving driveways and dogs without leashes chasing children. There were enough trees blocking the view of the sun that it was pointless to wear sunglasses, but Tim was glad he brought his anyway.

He glanced down at the piece of paper in his hand, where Randy Adderson's address was written. Tim vaguely remembered that Adderson was the best friend of a Soc that got stabbed a year ago in the park, Bob something-or-the-other, and cringed at the thought of having to be sympathetic.

Since the killing, Randy had barely passed the rest of his senior year and now lived at home with his parents and little sister. His father was a successful businessman, his mother a stay-at-home housewife, and the three of them, to Randy's knowledge, didn't know that he was doing drugs at all, especially the fact that he was buying them off an East side gang leader, and he preferred to keep it that way. The less his family knew about him dabbling in underground affairs, the better.

Tim's black Charger seemed to stick out like a sour thumb as he pulled into Randy's driveway, leaving the engine on. The house looked like one of those mansions that no one truly lived in, perfectly manicured, and it appeared that no one was home besides Randy, who was sitting on the front porch. He was wearing a button-down shirt, nervously pulling at the collar of it, and khaki pants, and Tim snickered.

Randy's face was skeptic as he approached the idling car, leaning against it.

Tim rolled down the driver's side window and said, "Don't lean on the side of the fuckin' car, dipshit - you'll scratch the paint."

Randy popped his head into the car, his cologne forcing out Tim's signature scent of booze and smoke. "How much?" he asked.

"It depends if you got the cash, Adderson," Tim said. Randy pulled out a crumpled stack of bills, loosely banded together with a rubber band, and took his sweet time unwinding it. "I don't have all fuckin' day," he added, impatient.

Randy placed the money in Tim's outstretched hand and was salivating by the time Tim gave him the plastic bag full of speed. Randy liked to use his own needles, despite the cheap deal Tim could get him.

"Thanks," Randy said, and Tim nodded, curt, like he knew what the word really meant.

Tim's tires left track marks into the pavement after each block passed him. His hand was smarting, but that wasn't anything a few bottles of beer and a couple painkillers couldn't fix. At a red light, he popped out the lighter and lit a cigarette, taking a drag. He'd expected to feel accomplished, successful even, but all he felt was an empty hole in the center of his chest.

xxx

Over his lifetime, Tim had been in enough interrogation rooms to the point of it becoming routine.

Two days out of jail and he'd been arrested again. According to the lieutenant that'd told him to come in, this wasn't true, but as far as Tim was concerned, there was no difference between talking to his probation officer than a cop.

Along with serving his one year in McAlester, he'd been sentenced to six months probation, resulting in "mandatory" meetings at the police station. His parole officer, Carter, was a bald, middle-aged man who smelled of patchouli. He was more lenient than his other parole officers had been, with a mind of his own that could get him favoring one side over the other, though that didn't mean Tim hated him any less. When he'd been given a report of Tim's priors, his face had turned the color of eggplant.

"Gotten into any trouble lately?" Carter asked.

Tim had to bite down on the inside of his cheek to stop from smirking. "No, sir," he said, trying to keep his voice level. He wasn't completely sure if Carter had noticed him dealing the speed to Randy, and tried to shake the apprehension off.

"It's only my second day out," he clarified, "you gotta give me more time, man."

Carter's laugh was dry and humorless. The room was quiet for a moment as he wrote something down on the paper in front of him and then tore the sheet off the pad. He slid it across the table and told Tim he could go.

Tim got out of his chair, didn't push it in and left, an officer handing him his keys on the way out of the station. Inside his car, he looked down at the paper and frowned at what was there. Carter had written his phone number and a note underneath it, the words smeared from being balled in Tim's hand: _in case you ever need to talk, _it said. Like hell he would.

Snorting, he tossed the paper into the backseat and slipped on his sunglasses. The sun, high in the sky, was causing a glare. Talking wouldn't make him feel any better or keep him out of any more trouble, but surely kicking Wade Hamilton's ass would.

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**A/N:** This was another very short chapter (hence the double-chapter update), but they will pick up - eventually - as the story builds. Thank you for the reviews so far, and please review this chapter and the previous as well if you already haven't! I'm eager to know what you think is going to happen next.


	4. Taking Over

_Here I go and I don't know why  
I spin so ceaselessly  
could it be he's taking over me. _

They cornered him after school in an alley at the corner of Eighty-First Place and Pickens, shoved between perverts' apartments where you never wanted to be walking alone well after dark and a rundown drugstore that hippies loomed over.

The two intersecting roads divided the Shepard territory from the River Kings' territory. Curly was kicking up loose pebbles and smoking a cigarette when he first heard the engine startle about twenty yards away from behind him.

Craning his neck, he turned his head and saw the sharp outline of blue sticking out from the graffiti stained walls of buildings, wheels sliding across the pavement at a snail's pace. Of course they were Kings no doubt - Tim had been telling him to watch his back whenever he went around town by himself, which, more often than not, he was. One night after a few beers at Buck's, Tim had come home and told Curly this (at the time) insignificant fact, right before he'd passed out.

Curly looked away, pretending like he hadn't heard anything, but he felt uneasy, tasted bile at the back of his throat.

"Shepard!" One of them yelled from inside the car, loud enough so Curly could hear. He ignored the catcall and exhaled a puff of smoke, doing the math in his head. School had ended at what, two? And right now it was about three, so he had been walking for at least a decent hour.

If Curly had taken the bus then he would've been home by now, with Angela. She would've locked herself in her room while he roamed the house, looking for any liquor bottles that hadn't been emptied due to his stepfather's massive drinking. He would hope to get a little buzzed so that night when he got hit he would be able to fight back for once instead of cowering away while Tim took the beating for him.

The car rolled along the curb, coming to a sudden stop. Curly almost jumped out of his skin when the engine flicked off, the butt of the cigarette flying out of his mouth and down the alleyway into the shadows as his jaw dropped. He didn't know why they were following him, and he didn't intend to stay long enough to find out.

Four car doors opened and shut. From his periphery, Curly could see that Wade Hamilton, the leader of the River Kings, and three of his boys had formed a _v_-shape, Wade in the front, arms crossed over his chest. Curly looked at the ground for a bike chain or a bottle or anything else he could use, and, disappointingly, came up short. His mouth was dry, and all he could think was, _I should've asked Tim for his blade_.

He cursed, trying to remember all the fighting rules Tim had told him over the years - _aim for the nose, if you punch someone make sure your thumb isn't out so you don't break it, get the hell out of there as fast as you can - are you even fuckin' listenin' to me, Curly_ - and couldn't remember a single one about what to do if he was jumped.

Occupied by his own thoughts, he didn't notice the fist crashing into his cheek until bone met bone. He staggered backwards and hit the alley wall, arms swinging, his hand cutting through the empty air and nails digging into flesh, tearing some off. And then, pure chaos: they came at him from all sides. A fist hitting his skull, another hitting his nose, a foot kicking his stomach, again and again and again, until his knees shook and his vision blurred. Far off, he could hear Tim yelling at him, telling him to _fight, Curly, goddamn it,_ but all the marrow in Curly's bones had been sucked out.

The edge of a blade sliced through the haze and cut into his skin, dragging along the base of his neck, the shock of pain forcing him to bite down on his lip so he wouldn't cry out.

"What the fuck d'you want?" he gasped.

"You already know what we fuckin' want, Shepard," Wade said, his voice cool. His eyes were gray - the color of steel - and Curly could see himself reflected in them, tiny, weak.

Curly swallowed, and this caused more blood to spill out, onto his t-shirt, the ground, and he knew that if it went in another inch, he was gone for. He chose his next words carefully, something he hadn't bothered to do once in his life.

"I dunno, I swear," he stammered, "Tim would know. Just go and find 'im…"

Taking this as an answer, Wade nodded to the others and stepped away, pulling the knife out in one harsh tug. It was red to the hilt, and Curly had to put his hands behind him, palms flat on the brick wall, to keep from falling over and vomiting at the same time.

Everything burned. He was disoriented, and after blinking to get the blood out of his eyes, he couldn't see anything besides Wade's smile, his bone-white teeth, the front incisor chipped. "Where can we find him?"

xxx

"God, Shepard, you sure bleed a lot."

No matter how hard he tried to convince himself, it still wasn't a compliment.

"Shut the hell up, Curtis." Curly winced at having to speak, his eyes struggling to stay open. Lord, was he _tired_.

"What time is it?" he asked a moment later, his voice cracking, and he swallowed spit. A wet cloth pressed down at the corner of his mouth and he would've jumped out of the Curtis' kitchen chair if Ponyboy hadn't shoved him back down.

"Stop your squirmin' already! Darry'll be back with the first-aid kit to sew up your cheek… or as soon as he finds it."

Pony's eyes traveled from his friend's and down the dark hall, where he could see the light from the bathroom on the carpet. Inside, Darry was rummaging through the cabinets, looking for the kit they hadn't bothered using since the night Dally and Johnny died. Remembering this always made Pony's heart hurt, along with Curly's continuous cursing, and he pushed the edge of the cloth too close to the open gash in Curly's cheek, making the other boy yelp.

"You didn't answer my question."

"What?"

"What time is it?"

"It's about eight-thirty, almost nine. Why'd you wanna know, anyway? Gonna be late for your date?" Ponyboy chuckled to himself, crinkles forming around his eyes.

"I will be after I'm finished with you." The intimidating side had set back into him and Curly almost felt good, hadn't it been for the amount of injuries he'd received. Soon after the Socs left, he'd lost his footing and woke up on the ground hours later, the sky dark, the impact of the fall having torn a hole, the size of his fist, in his cheek.

Darry finally entered the kitchen ten minutes later, face flushed and first-aid kit clutched to his chest in a death grip. Ponyboy had sat down in a chair and Curly, drowsy, had started falling asleep.

The stab of a needle breaking through his skin made Curly shoot his eyes open.

"What the hell?" he swore drowsily, glaring down his swollen nose at Darry's fingers, which had been lightly prodding his face.

"Hey, Curly, how've you been?" Only Darry would care about how Curly was doing right now - let alone another greaser like himself - and answered halfheartedly.

"Fine, until you decided to stab me with that damn needle. Fuckin' hurt, too." He ground his teeth into his bottom lip, biting back a stream of curses when the needle was inserted a second time.

"Sorry about that. This is gonna hurt for a bit unless you stop fidgeting," Darry said, and with the best smile he could conjure, went back to sewing up the left side of Curly's face.

From across the table, Ponyboy poked his tongue out and Curly wanted to snap his neck. It wasn't fair - the way the kid could walk around and act however he wanted just because the second toughest hood in Tulsa was getting a mediocre amount of medical attention.

Balling his hands into fists, Curly sat back in the chair, counting to ten over and over, which was the only way to pass the time besides replying to Pony's sarcastic remarks and Darry's questions. Curly felt like he was being interrogated at the police station and this just made him dislike Darry more.

"So, tell me again, Curly - how did this happen?" It was the third time Darry'd asked, Curly replying with the same bleak answer every time:

"Started walking home from school, a car rolled up and some Kings got out. Had a little beef that needed to be taken care of so we got into a fight. It was nothin' out of the ordinary." _Except that I was alone,_ he thought.

Darry nodded. "How many were there?"

If it were Tim he was talking to, maybe he wouldn't have lied, but Darrel Curtis was no Timothy Shepard. Curly thought of a response first, and then said, hoping to sound tough, "I dunno, man, a couple at most. Wasn't really payin' attention - just kept swingin' 'til they was all gone."

His brow furrowed as he felt the needle weave in and out of his skin, the thread following in suit. "How much longer is this gonna take, Curtis? I gotta go soon."

"Are you crazy? There's no way I'm going to let you go home in your current condition, Curly. You'll just have to stay here overnight, and then I'll drop you off tomorrow morning." Darry plucked the needle through a few more times, the pain sharper than before. Curly's face felt like it was on fire, his skin melting away to expose bone, and it hurt like hell.

"I can take care of myself," he said, and Darry smiled again, grabbing a pair of scissors from the first-aid kit to cut off the extra string wrapped around the needle.

"I'm sure you can."

Darry made a _tsk_ sound with his tongue and, to Curly's relief, removed the needle with a final pluck from the now sewn-up cheek, wiping away a faint trickle of blood with the dishrag Ponyboy had been using earlier. He grabbed something else from the first-aid kit, a bottle of rubbing alcohol, and poured some onto a cotton ball, wiping it across the stitches.

"The fuck're you starin' at, Pony?" Curly fidgeted in his seat, looking around the room, eyes frantic as if he was about to rob a house. "Never knew you for a queer, Curtis," he continued, and was about to say something else when Darry interrupted.

"Looks like we're all done here," he said, getting up. Reaching out a hand to Curly, he added, "You're gonna have to crash on the couch tonight, if that's alright."

Curly shrugged the offer off, pulling himself up without Darry's help, though his head swam and he hissed as his ribs brushed against each other. A couch wouldn't do any harm - he'd slept on worse. Taking a step forward, Curly swayed and caught himself on Darry's extended arm.

"You sure you don't wanna go to the hospital, Curly?" Darry asked.

"No, I'm okay." Curly shuffled his feet forward inch by inch, finding it easier to walk that way than take regular-sized steps. "You got any aspirin? I need a whole bottle."

Darry set off to find the bottle of pills along with a glass of water and, after a painful five minutes of struggling from one room to the other, Curly reached his destination: the couch. He collapsed once he hit the cushions, long legs dangling off the edge. His head, propped on a pillow, was at the ideal angle to where he didn't have to turn his whole head to scrutinize Ponyboy scurrying into the den with a bundle of blankets folded in his arms.

"Here you go, princess," Ponyboy said, glaring while he dropped the blankets onto Curly's chest, who snorted - this kid tried too hard to be tough.

"You little shit," Curly growled, and - pleased with the reaction of Ponyboy's eyes widening in shock of being called something like that - he let his body sink into the soft cushions. He spread a blanket across himself and tossed the rest of the pile onto the floor.

Before Pony could open his mouth to respond, Darry was in the room, two pills in one hand and a glass of water in the other.

He handed the pills to Curly and then the glass, who swallowed them without a sip of water, a trick Tim had taught him. "Thanks," he said dryly.

"Anytime." Darry's tone was polite and calm, and Curly didn't like the way it sounded, how he was being treated like a guest when he should've been at home, having Angela fuss over him with Tim standing in the corner, sullen.

Darry told Curly to call him if he needed anything else and went to bed. In the comfort of the darkness, Curly thought about what he would tell Tim when he came home the next morning, broken and bloody, and hoped that his brother would give a damn, just this once.


	5. A Thousand Feet

A/N: Merry Christmas, hope everyone had a wonderful holiday!

* * *

_Sometimes I get overcharged  
that's when you see sparks  
you ask me where the hell I'm going  
at a thousand feet per second._

"Hey, kid, you have to wake up now."

A hand shoved his shoulder roughly and Curly forced his eyes to open. He looked up at the corner of the ceiling where the water stain was supposed to be, and instead he saw Darry's face.

He sat up, momentarily confused at the burning of his ribs. Then his bleary gaze focused on Ponyboy with his hands folded across his chest. He stood by the front door, giving Curly a look that made his blood boil. It suddenly clicked together and Curly narrowed his eyes into slits.

_Fucker,_ he thought, and before he even knew what was happening, he'd lunged off the couch, and despite the growing slaughter of pain slowing him down with each step he took, was roughly all the way across the room and ready to strangle Pony hadn't Darry stopped him

"Hey, hey, hey!" Darry barked, grabbing Curly by the arm and twisting it behind his back, "what in the Sam Hill do you think you're doing?"

The world shifted at an odd angle and Curly slowed down to a stop, fighting to catch his breath. "None of your goddamn business," he said in a cold tone. Expecting a smack upside the head or a rough punch to the shoulder, he was surprised when neither happened, and his face fell. _Oh, right, _he mused, _Darry don't hit, Darry don't do this. Darry don't do jackshit._

Curly rubbed his temples, lightheaded. His head was pounding from having overslept and he felt like he had been sideswiped by a truck.

Darry let go of his arm and he teetered towards the kitchen on uneasy feet, stomach empty. Curly ached for a cigarette and his lips moved against his will, forming a sentence he didn't even want to ask in the first place.

"Do you got any food?" He staggered over to the kitchen table and pulled out a chair, sinking into the wood. Turning his head at the slightest degree, his jaw moved up to discard the shadow across his throat.

That was when Darry noticed the cut.

It started from Curly's right earlobe and snaked downwards in a jagged path, slightly grazing the skin of his Adam's apple before swooping down another inch and then back up until it connected with his left earlobe.

"Curly, what the _hell _-" Darry said, bringing a hand to his forehead. He started to mutter something about where he'd put that goddamned first-aid kit and Curly groaned, wishing that he hadn't moved his head to peek a glance at the refrigerator.

Soda, the one Curly'd always thought looked like a girl, peered into the room at the sound of Darry's commotion and said, "Holy shit."

Whether it was the sight of a Shepard in his house or seeing Curly's face banged up beyond recognition, the blonde retreated, whistling to himself.

Darry had brought the first-aid kit back from where it had been left the night before and lifted Curly's chin up towards the ceiling, slapping one band-aid on after the other until the large gash was covered. "Why didn't you tell me about this earlier?" he asked.

Instead of answering, Curly just shrugged and rolled his eyes in response - he didn't feel like talking. Every muscle in his body throbbed, shudders of pain ripping through him whenever he moved the slightest.

Darry clicked his tongue against his teeth and sighed. "C'mon, I gotta go drop you off. My boss is gonna kill me if I'm late again." Curly had a brief twinge of curiosity as to where Darry worked, and as they made their way outside and into the car, he asked where Ponyboy went.

"Mathews drove him to school," Darry informed, putting the car into reverse.

"Oh," Curly muttered, looking out the window at the front lawn where little patches of green, uneven grass popped up from the dirt.

"So, where to?" Darry said, after they'd passed the first intersection. He drove slowly and carefully, pausing at stop signs for more than four seconds, the total opposite of Tim, who drove recklessly and would run over anything if it was in his way. The radio was blasting some love song and to Curly's dismay, Darry didn't bother changing the station.

"Seventeen-fifty East Marshall," Curly responded, watching as rows of houses disappeared behind them in the rearview mirror.

Neither said anything for the whole length of the car ride, Darry glancing over at Curly every few seconds and then looking away. The sky had opened and small drops of rain hit the windshield. In front of his house, Curly muttered a "thanks" and stepped out of the truck, his shoes sinking into the mud.

Darry drove away, and Curly stood on the front porch, waiting for the front door to open. Minutes passed, and then he heard the sound of the bolt sliding back.

Angela, on the other side, screamed his name. Her voice was hoarse and he gave her a stiff, one-armed hug, leaning on her to walk inside. The house was quiet, too quiet, and the last thing he wanted to come home to was a bitching Angela, but he couldn't have his cake and eat it too.

"What the hell happened to you?" she started, and Curly brushed past her, tuning her worries out. His gaze was locked on the clock down the hall that sat above the kitchen sink, and soon his feet were following his eyes.

Curly reached the sink and leaned over it for support. His stomach lurched and an ache was starting right behind his eyes. He closed them, and suddenly felt tired, so, so tired. He couldn't believe it had only been twenty-four hours since he'd last seen his brother, and couldn't bear the thought of another twenty-four without him. It felt like seconds had passed, minutes even, since he'd seen skin turn purple and hear knuckles shatter like glass. Between the jumping in the alleyway and waking up, there was blackness, and he clawed for the memories, incapable to retain them for long.

"Tim isn't here."

Unable to hold it in any longer, Curly turned his head away and threw up into the sink.

xxx

"What the hell do you mean 'he isn't here'?" Curly demanded, wiping at his mouth with the back of his hand. Another wave of nausea threatened to take over, but he ignored it. This was more important.

"I woke up and he was gone," Angela said, "didn't leave no note or nothing."

"Fuck," Curly said. He bit down on his lip, his brain working overtime to figure out where Tim might've gone off to, and couldn't think of any realistic answer. He knew less of his brother's whereabouts than of his sister's and this was starting to take a toll on him.

He turned to Angela and saw that she was tugging on a piece of hair, how she acted when she was nervous or had something to hide.

"Well, there was this one time…" she said, her voice sounding sheepish, "Tim called when you weren't home, when he was still locked up. He said he wanted to talk to you about Wade, wanted you to leave it alone."

Curly's cheeks were starting to burn, whether from embarrassment or recognizing the fact that Wade was on the hunt to kill Tim, he couldn't tell the difference, not anymore. Everything was making harsh, unforgivable sense, happening too fast for him to control it.

Her face turned pale. "What did you do?" she asked.

"I didn't do anything," he snapped. But he knew, if no one else did, that he'd done the complete opposite of nothing - he'd betrayed his own flesh and blood, and by doing so he'd gotten nothing in return. It didn't make him better or smarter or second-in-command, like he'd hoped. It was a shitty move, the shittiest of all, and when Tim found out… _when Tim found out…_

Curly couldn't breathe. His lungs had folded in on themselves, and his stomach dropped to his toes.

"Jesus Christ," he muttered, "I gotta find him."

"Curly, _no_," Angela said, reaching for his arm, the fabric of his shirt slipping through her fingers. He shook her off and left the room, limping to the front door. He felt horrible, like his stitches were reopening and he was getting jumped all over again, but none of this mattered. Only Tim mattered, only Tim ever _did _matter, and Curly repeated this to himself as he stepped outside and into the rain, as if this mantra was able to keep them from falling apart.


	6. As the Bolts Break

_Now I'm keeping stow  
in someone's bright carnival ride  
all the crowd just cheers  
as the bolts break and metal collides._

"That's the last one," Buck said, slamming the glass onto the counter. "I don't got no more." His teeth were terribly crooked and yellow like the rest of him; jutting out as he said this.

Seeing as he had no reason to go home after the meeting with his parole officer, Tim had gone to the roadhouse for a beer. He'd planned on taking care of Wade that night, but got sidetracked at four that afternoon, when a crowd rolled in and gave a spark of life to the place. He'd rarely had the time to party since he got out of jail, besides the homecoming party the day he was released, and hadn't realized how much he'd missed the drinking and the girls and the shitty music.

He'd woken up this morning hung-over and had been complaining ever since. The roadhouse was a mess, stuck in a haze of smoke, cigarette butts and beer bottles littering the floor. Buck was wiping down the counters when Tim had sat down at the bar and asked for a drink. It was eight in the morning and he'd rubbed at his eyes, blinking out the sleep. Buck wouldn't give him any food though because he wasn't, in Buck's terms, _"loyal"_ - but Dally Winston had worked for his room _and _the meager amount of food in the refrigerator.

Tim rolled his eyes. "You're lying," he said, taking a sip of the beer, the taste sour in his mouth. He liked Buck most of the time, got along with him even, but sometimes the cowboy could be a pain in the ass.

"Like I said, you get a job, you get a room, you get your goddamn food," Buck repeated, sounding tired. Since Tim had started coming to the roadhouse and staying overnight, that had been the motto, and there was no point in arguing.

Tim drank the rest of his beer like it was water and left soon after. He was turning onto his street when he saw Curly standing in the middle of it. His clothes were completely soaked through from the rain and stained with blood, clinging to his skin, the white material of his shirt showing the wounds underneath. He was wincing as he limped, and Tim pulled over, disgusted at the sight.

He rolled down the window and yelled, "Get in."

Curly didn't answer, didn't move. He stayed where he was, in front of the car. His face was white, like he was a deer caught in the headlights. The rain was coming down harder now, in sheets, and Tim got out, furious.

Tim hadn't seen this much blood since the rumble and approached his brother cautiously, wanting to vomit. Curly shrank back, trying to make a run for it, but Tim grabbed his arm before he could get out of his reach, turning him around so they were face-to-face.

"What the fuck happened to you?" Tim asked, his eyes taking in the stitches on Curly's cheek that weren't there the day before, the bandages under his chin that ran along his neck, the bruises on his arms.

Curly didn't say anything, and Tim's fingers tightened their grip on his arm.

"Tell me what happened," Tim said, slower this time.

"You're gonna hate me," Curly mumbled.

Tim sighed, exasperated. He was getting cold from the rain and wanted to go home, to where there was a bed and a hot shower and clean clothes. "I'm not gonna fucking hate you, so stop being a drama queen and let's go."

Curly shook his head, grimacing. After this, Tim wouldn't only hate him, Tim would fucking kill him. He tapped his fingers against his knee and inhaled, his insides twisting.

"Ang told me about what you said, when you was locked up," he said, "how I should stay away from Wade." He paused, motioning towards the blood on his shirt, and his half-smile was of pain. "I tried, but I couldn't fight 'em off. They jumped me after school, it was him'n'three other guys… And Wade wanted to know where you were."

Tim's brain pounded against his skull. He couldn't think of anything to say, it hurt too much.

"So I told him you was out, on parole," Curly finished, waiting for the yelling, the cursing. But Tim did neither. His face twisted into an unrecognizable expression, something worse than anger and pity, and at that moment he punched Curly straight in the mouth, splitting his lips open.

"Fuck you," he roared, his fist connecting with Curly's jaw, his arms, until his fingers were numb, until he was out of breath and couldn't feel anything except anger, pure rage. Curly had fallen to the ground and was on his knees, his hands cupped around his nose, blood pooling through the gaps between his fingers; and with one swift kick, he was on his side, moaning into a puddle.

Tim stood over Curly, having never felt so sick of someone in his whole life.

"Stay the fuck away from me, you hear?" he said, delivering another kick to Curly's abdomen. "Get your shit out of the house; you can fucking rot, for all I care."

"You don't mean that, Tim," Curly said, and repeated it again, louder this time. His eyes stung, and he closed them for a moment, feeling as if he was, of all things, about to cry. _You don't mean that, Tim,_ he thought, _because you can't._

But they both knew this wasn't true. Tim was the kind of person that was straightforward, despite what kind of impact the truth held, and meant every word he said.

All around them, the rain continued to fall.


	7. Only the Strong Survive

_And it is only the strong survive  
and that is only the biggest lie  
and I'm sorry, sorry about tonight._

Aimlessly, Tim drove for hours with no particular destination in sight. At least three of his knuckles on his right hand were broken and some of Curly's blood had gotten onto his shirt, giving the gray material a rust-like color.

Tim had despised Wade Hamilton long before they'd gotten busted for breaking-and-entering, and was more-so upset over the fact that his own brother had betrayed him. At the time of the arrest, he and Wade were both old enough to be charged as adults; however, being eighteen Tim had gotten an easier sentence because all of his priors were misdemeanors from when he was a minor. Along with breaking-and-entering, Wade had been charged with attempted robbery and wasn't supposed to be out for three more months, in which Tim was to devise a plan to take him down, once and for all.

Wade was the leader of the River Kings and the main reason why Tim had started a gang. He was two years older than Tim and a total hard-ass, who liked to play dirty and fight dirtier. He'd spent most of his life either in prison or waiting to get out, and word on the street was that he'd kill a guy if they went behind his back.

Tim was mean, but he wasn't the cruelest of leaders. He knew how to discipline the boys that got out of line and reward the ones that didn't. With him, it was all about balance: if you did well, you were praised; and if you did badly, you were thrown to the dogs. Wade didn't work this way, instead preferring to cause more trouble than he could control, which resulted in a loose system of gang members and a chaotic history of street wars.

Their relationship had been destructive since they'd met five years before, built on drug deals and deception. Tim couldn't think of a single reason why Wade would want to hunt him down, and though he'd done the right thing by telling Tim what was going on, the eldest Shepard's pride had been hurt mighty awfully.

Tim was confused and had acted on impulse, taking his anger out on Curly because Wade wasn't there. He couldn't believe that his own brother was a traitor, and it was selfish to replay their fight in his head, each detail brighter, the words clearer.

_You don't mean that, Tim,_ Curly had said, and it was true: Tim had been at fault and it was his responsibility to make it right again, not the other way around.

It was still light out; the sun was low in the sky, on the edge of the horizon. Tim made a swift u-turn in the middle of the deserted road and floored the pedal down, guilt rising in his throat, suddenly apprehensive for so many reasons.

xxx

Curly couldn't move.

The nurse, red-faced and plump, had said no when he asked if he could walk by himself to the bathroom, adjacent to the hospital room. After Tim had gotten into his car and driven off, Curly spent fifteen minutes lying on the ground, breathing in dirty water and his own blood, pain stabbing at his insides, until someone called an ambulance.

According to the doctors in the emergency room, he was lucky to have survived such an ordeal. Two of his ribs were broken, poking his lungs and causing the shortness of breath he'd felt earlier; the stitches in his cheek had to be re-sewn shut and fifty were needed to close up the gash on his throat; and he'd lost enough blood from the last two days that he'd gotten a transfusion. Curly wasn't happy about this, and had glared at the IV in his arm and the red liquid in it with disgust on his face, wanting to rip the needle out of his arm. It was ridiculous, how he had more independence at a hospital than at his own house.

So far Curly hadn't called Angela and told her what happened, and wasn't looking forward to the moment when he would have to. He'd been in worse condition than this before and yet they'd refused to increase the dosage of morphine, saying that as soon as his ribs healed, he'd be discharged. This gave him a few days to sulk in his hospital bed, alone except for the presence of an occasional nurse checking in, entertaining himself by either looking out the window or pressing down on the swollen skin above his ribs, the feeling both painful and mildly satisfying.

Most of the time, his thoughts drifted to Tim and the fight they'd had, if Wade had found him, and some small part of him, the part that couldn't hate Tim, hoped that he still had time to run.

xxx

"What're you doing?"

At the sound of his sister's voice, Tim dropped the pack of cigarettes onto his bed and turned to her.

She was in the doorway, make-up smeared and eyes red and puffy. Her voice was shaky and she looked like she'd been crying; briefly, the thought of her seeing the fight and calling an ambulance crept into his head, and then he turned his attention to what he'd been doing before she interrupted: packing.

Curly hadn't been where Tim had left him, on the side of the road, and Tim didn't dare ask where he was.

"Leaving," he said, biting down on the corner of his lip. The nicotine from the last cigarette he'd smoked was lingering on his tongue, the taste sharp, and it wasn't enough to stop his hands from shaking. He balled them into fists at his sides, wanting to reach out to her, to know that she hadn't lost trust in him, too. It would be so simple to tell her what'd happened with Curly, and what was going to happen with Wade. So, so easy…

"Where're you going?" she asked, eyeing the small bag on the bed, where the switchblade he owned was hidden underneath a pile of folded clothes he wouldn't wear. The blade he was going to use to threaten Wade, and if that didn't work, then the blade he was going to take Wade's life with.

"Out of town," he said, "might go into the city." He could tell that Angela saw through the lie and felt a slight lift of pressure off his chest when she didn't press the conversation any further.

He told her that he was going to take a shower before he left and headed to the bathroom, itching to get Curly's blood off his skin, push the memories away. It was the only room in the house besides her bedroom that had a working lock, and he savored the sound of it clicking into place.

"Have you seen Curly? He was looking for you," she said all of a sudden, and he paused, the door half-way shut. She couldn't see his face because he hadn't turned the light on, and once again he was glad for having spent so many hours in the dark.

"No, I haven't."

He shut the door, leaving the light off, and showered with the water cold. Afterward, he pulled on a clean shirt and jeans, raked his fingers through his hair and grabbed his stuff from the bedroom he and Curly shared. On his way out, he looked down at his hands and saw the raw, red knuckles, not yet ready to heal.

xxx

The rattling of the doorknob woke Curly up.

The nurses had told him that visitation hours were strictly from seven a.m. to eight p.m., and it was well past nine. He was drowsy and forced himself to sit up, the pain of his ribs making him want to throw up the small bowl of soup he'd barely eaten.

The door opened, allowing a small sliver of light to enter the otherwise dark room, and Curly's face fell when he saw Tim.

"The fuck're you doing here?" Curly croaked, his voice caught in his throat. He clenched his fists, the hate he felt for his brother smoldering in his veins.

"I gotta talk to you," Tim said, taking a step towards the bed. He tried not to breathe too hard and stare at Curly for too long; the antiseptics hospitals used gave him a headache, and seeing Curly with bandages and bruises gave him an ulcer in his stomach.

"Like fucking hell you do," Curly snapped.

"For as much as I let you do in the gang, it sure as _shit_ wasn't your place to tell Wade I was out."

"Well, maybe if you woulda told me he was gonna kill you, then I wouldn't a said anything!"

"That's your problem!" Tim said, "You always gotta make everything so fucking complicated. Goddamn it, Curly, the only reason we're in this mess is 'cause of me, and you won't even give me the time of day to fix it!"

Curly's heart sank to his stomach. He looked out the window and stared at the scattering of cars parked below, the moonlight glinting off the hoods, and said, his voice deflated, detached, "Then fix it."

Tim was infuriated. Curly could be as stubborn as an ox, and sometimes Tim felt like he was talking to a brick wall. His blood pounded in his ears, and he flexed his broken knuckles, the pain of disjointed bones reminding him of why he was here.

"I'm gonna kill him," he said, the corners of his lips turning down.

"Who, Wade?"

"No, the fucking president, Curl. Get your head out of your ass."

A moment passed, neither of them saying anything.

"How're you gonna do it?" Curly finally asked, swallowing. "Wade's armed like a prison guard. He'll kill you before you get the chance to stab him."

"Yeah, and maybe he won't," Tim argued, cross. He couldn't allow himself to think negatively like that, of what it would feel like if it actually happened. "Fuck it, I'm going."

He needed to get this done and over with already; he couldn't spend the rest of the night in a goddamn hospital room listening to his brother complain when he could be looking for Wade. Sure, he had scars, but it had taken years to earn those. This night was just like any other when he had a beef with someone. Hell, he was prepared for a fight, and a good one at that: he had a blade and common sense.

"Fine," Curly said. He turned his head and looked at Tim, really looked at him, noticing the determination set into his face, the hardness in the lines around his eyes, and wondered if this was what it'd come down to, if dying was the only way you got anywhere in life.

"Tell Ang I'm here," he added, just as Tim was leaving. "In case she doesn't know."

The door shut. It would be the last time Curly saw his brother for awhile.


	8. Play Along

_And I keep taking off my clothes  
and putting them right back on  
'cause there's decisions to be made  
and I won't, I won't play along._

Tim heard Wade before he saw him.

Ironically, the River Kings' territory ran along the river, and there was a forest that surrounded the water on three sides, creating a peninsula. This made it easy to park your car in a clearing of trees and sit there and wait, which Tim was doing now. In the rearview mirror he saw the red spark of a flame, and then the dying out of it.

Tim got out of the car, easing the door shut as quietly as he could. He started toward where he'd seen the spark, feeling the same way he did before a fight - anxious, stomach churning. His throat was dry, and he wasn't sure he could breathe. There were fallen branches and twigs all over the ground, and he struggled through the trees and bushes, cursing under his breath. In the daylight, the woods were easy to navigate if you knew where to go, but at night it was unfamiliar terrain to anyone that was a stranger to darkness.

Just like Tim had anticipated, Wade was alone, standing at the shore with his back to Tim's, a beer bottle in his hand. They hadn't seen each other since the hearing a year before, and the whole situation felt wrong, the air electrified.

Tim grabbed his blade from his pocket and felt the familiarity of the weight in his hand, his fingers forming around the cold, metal hilt. He'd learned years ago that a man could be killed if a knife went directly through their shoulder blades and into the heart, and as he approached, he cleared his throat, watching in mute satisfaction as Wade stilled at the noise.

"How're you fucking doing, Hamilton," Tim said through gritted teeth, shoving his hand forward, the blade slicing through the back of Wade's shirt, tearing the fabric, the skin -

And then Wade turned around, suddenly, just as the tip of the blade cut into his spine, and raised the beer bottle, bringing it down onto Tim's head before he could get out of the way. Glass shattered and bits cut into Tim's skull, drops of beer burning in his eyes, and he blinked through the pain. Caught off-guard, he stumbled forward to press the knife in deeper, his fingers losing its hold on the hilt.

The blade fell to the ground, and Wade's yell, a horrible noise that sounded like an animal dying, pierced the night. With it came his fist, hitting Tim's ear. They struggled like that, Tim on the ground kneeling over Wade, blade raised, hitting and stabbing anywhere he could; and then Wade was leaning over Tim, a shard of glass cutting into Tim's cheek. The fight was a blur, clear one moment and hazy the next.

Blood was dripping onto the sand, into the river, his or Wade's, Tim couldn't tell anymore. His mouth tasted like iron - Wade must've landed a punch to his mouth at some point - and he spit in Wade's direction, blood dribbling down his chin, hoping he hadn't swallowed any of his teeth.

Soon they had reached the edge of the shore.

Tim could feel water and sand on his face, on his clothes, and if he could feel panic, he would've then. He wasn't a great swimmer, to the point where he could drown himself by accident, and looked around for a way out, the briefest hint of moonlight catching his gaze. The light glinted off the blade, laying a foot or so away in the sand, covered in red to the hilt, and Tim reached for it, not wanting it to be pulled away by the current, arm nearly out of its socket, his fingers slipping through the water.

But Wade had noticed it, too, and clambered over Tim for the blade. Tim took this as an opportunity to tackle Wade and did so, putting his hand on the other man's chest to push him deeper into the water. For a moment, Tim felt the skin breaking along his temple and swore, blood smearing across his vision. Wade laughed at this, a bitter sound, and Tim grabbed onto Wade's wrist, twisting it once, then twice, not satisfied until he heard the bone snap.

The blade was dropped immediately, making a _plunk_ing sound as it sank into the water before Tim could grab it, disappearing completely. Wade's wrist fell at an awkward angle, and Tim stumbled to his feet, pulling Wade out of the water by the collar of his shirt.

Tim's fists, wrapped in the cloth of Wade's shirt, were trembling. Tim felt tired, like all of his strength was gone, his bones drained of marrow and his veins drained of blood, and he breathed in as much air as he could, heart hammering. He didn't have much time left, a couple seconds at most, until Wade swung at him again.

"You and I both know I haven't done fucking _nothing _to you since I was out," he said. "You got yourself that extra sentence, Hamilton, I didn't do _shit_."

"Got out early, on good behavior." Wade's voice was cold and ragged, unemotional.

"But that sure as hell don't give you no fucking right to go after my goddamn brother with your pussy gang," Tim continued, curling a hand around Wade's neck. Wade inhaled, trying to breathe, and Tim smirked at the other man's pain.

"So what, Shepard, you really think I give a fuck?" Wade barked, "I'll do whatever it takes to bring you down."

Hatred spread from the middle of Tim's chest to his fingers, his toes, a fire that could not be controlled. "I shoulda killed you by now, you know that?"

Wade said the last thing he would for hours, "Then what the fuck're you waiting for?" and then, before he could stop himself, Tim moved his other hand to Wade's neck and strangled him, nails scraping bits of flesh off. Minutes passed before he went limp under Tim's palms, guttural noises silenced, his pulse weak, and Tim let go.

Wade landed in the river face-down, and Tim glared at the unmoving body for a second, feeling nothing at all except the erratic beat of his heart against his chest. He knew that it would be a challenge to leave; his clothes were stuck to his wet skin, weighing each step down, but he was sure that he'd be able to find his way through the shadows and to his car.

After all, he was born in blood, and would die just the same.

xxx

By the grace of God, Tim was able to drag himself into the house and up the stairs, stopping every few seconds to catch his breath.

His eyes were wide-open and red from the beer having splashed in them and his skin felt sore and raw, covered in dry blood and sand. Since the fight with Wade, numbness had spread throughout the inside of his body and expanded outwards, a feeling he'd always welcomed but this time wanted to shove away.

He'd finally earned his death wish and surely, if Wade had half a brain he'd kill Tim the next chance he got. Tim hoped it would be soon and at the same time acutely resented the idea of dying. He would've off-ed himself years ago hadn't it been for Angela and Curly, and they knew this, knew it so well that they could see it in his black eyes.

There was wetness on his chin; he rubbed the heel of his hand against it and pulled it away, not surprised to see that there was more blood. At the end of the hallway was his bedroom, and he pushed open the door, not caring if the sheets would be stained red by morning.

In his bed, the white ceiling was a ray of light through his closed eyelids, and he willed sleep to come. It never did.

xxx

Angela found him the next afternoon, sitting up against the headboard, choking down a cigarette.

He'd woken up at the sound of her entering the house, starved and smelling of iron and dirty water. He'd planned on taking a shower before she came home from school, or wherever the hell she'd been at, but had given up and crawled back to bed when he couldn't get his clothes - cemented to his skin - off.

She was, as he'd frowned at the thought, furious, and was yelling at him the moment she was in his bedroom, about where Curly was and "what the hell happened, anyway, Jesus Christ, Tim, I mean, God, can't you do _anything _without dragging him into it". She had a way of repeating things when she was upset and it was starting to give Tim a fucking headache.

So Tim lit another cigarette and told her everything - at least enough to fill in the gaps she'd created - and saw her face soften.

"Why didn't he tell me?" There was a crease between his sister's eyebrows that hadn't been there before he'd come home sixteen days ago, and her face appeared frighteningly older in the dimness of the bedroom, like she'd seen too much in too little of a time, grown up without him noticing.

"Didn't want to."

"But you'd tell me. You'd tell me, right, Tim?"

"Always."

This time, lying to her didn't hurt him, not one bit. He guessed, like everything else, that he'd just gotten used to it.

"You should go," he added, "visit Curly."

"Yeah," she said, briefly looking at his face, the bruises coloring in his cheeks and the blood, the red that took over everything, and something hurt deep inside of her chest, a sharp flicker of pain, and she left the room before he could say anything else.

xxx

"Did Tim send you?" was the first thing out of Curly's mouth when he saw Angela. She'd arrived at the hospital earlier than she'd planned and now hesitated in the doorway, unsure of whether she should enter or just stay where she was. If she closed her eyes, she'd see Tim's injuries, and if she left them open, she'd see Curly's. For as much bad rap the Shepard family got, it was a dangerous line to cross, and she didn't like it at all.

"No, I came on my own." She clung to her purse like it was a life preserver and gingerly crossed the small space to the vacant chair beside the bed. She sat down, the leather material of the seat sticking to the back of her thighs, and studied her brother.

Curly's injuries had worsened from the condition he'd been in when she'd seen him yesterday morning. His skin was two shades in some places, its usual light tan and then an ugly-blue black color, there was an IV in his arm and medical tape was wrapped around his bare stomach. He caught her staring, and relaxed at the sight of her acting normal, worrying over him.

"What the hell is going on, Curly?" she asked. His eyes didn't meet hers; they were expertly trained on the ceiling tiles.

"I dunno, Ang, a lot," he answered, and Angela scowled.

"Well I'm fucking sick of it. Whatever ya'll got yourselves into this time, there sure as hell ain't gonna be a way out."

"How do you know? You're not God," Curly retorted, annoyed that he couldn't argue to this. She'd made a point, and a clear one at that.

Wade and Tim were short circuited: the longer they dragged out another war, the messier it became to clean up and start over once the dust had settled. Wars were like packs of wolves: the leader was always killed off one way or another, whether by his own gang or someone else's, and the second-in-command was given the position of the new leader and the changing of the gang's name, until something gave and the cycle had no choice but to repeat itself again and again.

After his cousin had been brought down by Brumley years ago, Wade Hamilton had stepped in to keep the family name intact. He'd been the River Kings' leader since Curly could remember and would stay like that until somebody was pissed off enough to decide otherwise; when the Shepard gang was just starting out and Tim's name didn't hold more than a brief pause in conversation.

But Curly was sick of playing Tim's games, had been for longer than he'd realized. Tim had treated him like the dirt under his fingernails, like he treated everyone else, and Curly hated it to the core, hated Tim and Wade and the war he couldn't stop from happening. Most of all he couldn't handle the not-knowing, of how the next time he saw his brother he might be in the ground.

"Neither are you, Curl," Angela said, getting up from her seat. She stormed out without another word, the door slamming shut behind her. Curly exhaled, his lungs itching for a cigarette and fresh air. The last thing he needed was to have found out a way to fuck his relationship with his sister up, too. He wasn't sure how many more people he could have mad at him before he snapped in half.

xxx

"Jesus Christ," Wade swore as another rush of water and vomit came out of his mouth and dripped onto the sand.

He'd been passed out until ten minutes ago, when his second-in-command, Nick MacIntosh, and his little brother, Pete, stumbled upon the grisly sight in the late afternoon sunlight. They'd found him by chance, and Wade was glad about it. There was an ache behind his eyes that needed to go away, and he took a swig of the whiskey Pete had ran back to the truck to get earlier, the alcohol setting a path of fire down his raw throat.

He hurt all over. His left wrist was broken, hanging limply at his side; he had scratches and bruises up and down his arms and neck, and each time he breathed a wisp of cold air burrowed itself deep inside the gash in his back that ran from his shoulder blades and curved down in a jagged path. Last night, Tim had aimed for the heart and got the spine instead, and Wade grimaced through the wave of pain he was trapped under.

Nick held out his hand to help Wade stand, but the leader refused, climbing to his own feet by himself. Once upright, he swayed slightly, moments of the fight coming back to him in bits and pieces. Turning around as the blade sliced into his back, glass shattering everywhere, blood dripping, the blade flying through the air, water in his eyes, the shortness of breath as Tim choked him, and then blackness - and he tried to ignore them, but they persisted with a vengeance.

The three made their way to the truck, Pete far ahead, car keys in hand. Oblivious, he didn't notice the two had stopped walking a few yards back. Nick had pulled Wade aside and now turned to face his friend.

"We're going to war, aren't we?" he asked, his voice low so that his brother wouldn't overhear. His tan eyes were lit up at the proposition of what was bound to happen sooner or later.

Wade grinned wolfishly. "Yeah, MacIntosh," he said after a pause, "I'd like to say we fucking are."


	9. Everything's Changing

_Just because everything's changing  
doesn't mean it's never been this way before._

"So what're we gonna do?"

"What're 'we' gonna do? You ain't doing shit, Curl."

Curly had been sent home from the hospital five days after Angela visited him and been subjected to bedrest until his ribs didn't feel so sore if he walked or sat up. Mostly he'd stayed downstairs on the couch in front of the television, where there was easy access to beer and cigarettes. He was lighting one up when Tim came into the house, bringing in the cold wind and the sunlight from outside that did nothing to warm the blood in Curly's veins.

Tim had given Curly as many details as he could about what had happened when he was in the hospital, brushing the fight with Wade off when Curly had asked about it. Tim was sick of lying, but war was on the horizon, and he needed to think through his plan before saying it out loud, putting it into definite action. He was sitting on the edge of the coffee table, tossing the box of matches from one hand to the other. Curly passed the cigarette to him wordlessly and he took a grateful drag, handing it back. A gray cloud rose to the ceiling as he exhaled and stared directly at his brother for the first time since he'd returned from McAlester.

Curly was the one to break eye-contact first. He'd never liked looking into Tim's eyes because it was like looking into a black hole - once you got sucked in, you never got out - and fidgeted with the loose threads of the blanket draped over the back of the couch.

"Why the hell not?" he asked, not liking the way his voice sounded to his ears, childish and whiny and nothing like the voice he'd mastered over the time that Tim was gone.

"'Cause I said so," Tim answered. "'Sides, you got school anyway."

"So what?"

"I can't have you skipping no more or the state's gonna find out and hound my ass for letting you. Shit, they could take you away or something, and then what would I do?" Tim mocked. He was trying to make the conversation lighthearted and Curly wasn't buying any of it. Knowing he'd have to face Tim eventually, he'd drank three beers that morning with his breakfast, and now, slightly buzzed, he could feel the tension in the air, a thickness that made it hard for him to breathe. It'd been there since they'd fought, and all he wanted was to clean the slate, to have the old Tim back, the one who he could stand being around most of the time, the one who wasn't such an asshole.

There was an old saying about how blood was thicker than water, and Curly couldn't help wondering if he'd made the right decision, staying by his brother's side instead of pulling away, letting him fight this war all on his own. Tim was the kind of person destined to be lonely, and as much as he told this to himself, Curly couldn't leave, no matter how much it hurt to stay. It was true that their separate injuries were healing, which was a good thing, but this was also bad because it meant that time was passing, and with each day over, it meant one less moment with the person he'd have done anything to save.

"Trust me," Tim said, "I'm not dead yet, am I?"

"Fuck you," Curly said, and Tim, surprised, raised his eyebrows. He grabbed an unopened beer bottle that lay on the ground and twisted the cap off. He took a long pull, glaring at the side of Curly's face, and for a moment, all they could hear was their breathing.

"You don't know how much I've had to put up with for you. You think this is fucking easy? I could drop you in a second and you wouldn't be able to do a goddamn thing about it. And since you're so fucking smart all of the sudden, Curly, why don't _you _tell _me _what I should do?" Tim's voice rose and he laughed bitterly, "Go on, tell me."

It was a rhetorical question, and Curly bit down on his tongue. His fingers were shaking, and he tugged at the hem of his shirt, wanting to make Tim hurt the way he did.

"That's what I thought," Tim said. "You wouldn't know fucking _shit _if it hit you in the face."

There it was again, that palpable uneasiness in Curly's throat, how it felt to fall down a flight of stairs: spiraling out of control with the acute knowledge of sensing that he'd hit the ground, when it came, and hit it hard.

xxx

"_So, how's Curly doing?"_

_"He's fine. Why're you asking?" _

"_I'm just curious is all, 'cause it seems like you aren't."_

_"The fuck does that have to do with anything?"_

_There was a pause, and then, "Shit, Tim, you ever get tired of this?"_

_"Get tired of what?"_

_"Living this kind of life. You ever think about the future, what might happen to him if something happens to you?"_

"_It doesn't matter. Nothing's gonna fuckin' happen to me, Curtis."_

_"Just think about it. Might do you some good…"_

xxx

Tim snapped his eyes open and sat up in bed, pulse racing and skin covered in a sheen layer of sweat. The conversation he'd had with Curly had triggered a memory, and after he finished his beer, he'd gone upstairs to try and sleep it off. Clearly it hadn't worked, because he could still remember the exact moment everything had changed.

It'd been right after Curly broke into the liquor store. Of all people, Darry Curtis had called him in the morning and asked if he wanted to repair some house's shingles on the west side of town. Tim had obliged, needing the small amount of cash so he could pay the bills he'd fallen behind on and just to get around.

He'd shown up at nine sharp, and by the time it was one o'clock, he was covered in sweat and his bones ached. Darry had offered him a ride and he'd accepted; it was a fifteen minute drive home, and he knew that, at some point, Darry would preach about leaving the gang life behind for the importance of family, and wanted to gag at the thought.

And that was it. Darry listed his various pros and cons, Tim was dropped off at his house, and as he'd walked up the front steps he'd played the conversation over and over in his head, trying to understand what Darry had been talking about, and why it was so important.

As he sat in the dark, wiping off the beads of perspiration that slid down his forehead, his tired mind came to a conclusion. As long as there were gangs, there would always be wars - one couldn't exist without the other. Wars were like a forest fire: there were only so many ways it could be snuffed out before the flames became uncontrollable and destroyed everything in its path. If Tim didn't do anything about the fights, just let them run their course, his territory would be overruled and he'd be taken down; but if he did something about it, fought back, fire against fire, Wade would be driven into the ground.

This is where the memory reared its ugly head into the back of his mind. The last time he'd had a conversation with Darry Curtis that lasted more than fifteen seconds had been during the hot, normal summer of 1966, before the world had gone to shit with that murdered Soc and the rumble and Dallas Winston killing himself with Tim's unloaded point-forty-five pistol.

If Tim was able to get the Curtis gang - or at least what was left of it - on his side, plus a few stragglers from the lower rankings of Brumley and Tiber Street that Curly had befriended, he'd have some sort of a decent chance to win the war. Add in a few weapons and Two-Bit Mathews to lighten the mood with his alcoholism and shitty jokes, and Tim would be set to bring Wade down. He could play dirty with the best of them, and knew that when the going got tough, it was best to keep pushing on.

But he'd wait until the morning to spring this plan on Darry. It would be Sunday, the one day that Darry didn't work, and Tim couldn't risk the possibility of Curly waking up if he snuck out of the house in the middle of the night. Curly had barely gone upstairs since he'd returned home from the hospital, and if he did the two brothers didn't say a word to one another unless it was necessary. Most of the time Curly couldn't hold his eyes to Tim's, and when he did there was a look in them Tim didn't like, a painful twinge that he felt in the bottom of his stomach.

And maybe he'd have brought it up, too, if Curly hadn't flipped out, but they both knew that nothing would've really changed. The space beside him was still empty, the coldness of the bedroom wall seeping through his shirt, an apology he would never say jammed in the back of his throat.

xxx

"Where're you going?"

Curly spoke from the couch, his head facing the black screen of the television. There would be nothing good on besides kid cartoons for another two hours, so he yet had any reason to turn it on. Tim was going out, nonetheless at nine in the morning on a Sunday, and his destination most definitely wasn't the church at the end of the street.

Tim put one hand on the front doorknob, twisting it open while the other dug around his jacket pocket for his keys. He'd been surprised how Curly asked him this, blasé, like it didn't matter if he could or couldn't tag along.

"The Curtis'," Tim admitted. "I gotta talk to Darry about something." He waited for Curly to react, to stop acting so careless all of the sudden, and then, when he didn't move a muscle, said, "You wanna go with me?"

"Okay." Curly got up from the couch and smoothed his wrinkled shirt down, touching the bruised flesh around his ribs to see if there was any more pain, if it would ever go away. Tim didn't wait for him to put his shoes and jacket on; he'd opened the door and disappeared outside to start the car.

Despite the warmth of the car's heater and the cigarette Tim handed him, it was early November, meaning that by the first snowfall, there would be blood on the ground, and Curly shivered. He kept his hands in his lap, fingers laced together despite wanting to tap them on the window, eyes on the road ahead.

They rolled up to a red light and Tim coughed, brushing loose curls out of his eyes. He hadn't greased it down, so he looked like he'd just rolled out of bed. His hair was unruly and tangled, nothing like the way he usually wore it, and damp in places where he'd ran a wet comb through it.

"Don't you wanna know why we're going there?" he asked, his blue eyes somehow dark and bright at the same time.

"Sure." Curly was slightly annoyed at how his curiosity slipped through the neutral façade he'd hidden behind for the past week.

"There's gonna be a war -"

"But you said this was over, you said you took care of it, Tim," Curly interjected, and the veins in his forehead snapped.

"I fucking tried."

The light changed to green, and they crossed the intersection, Tulsa flying past them in a blur. Tim changed lanes and pressed his foot down on the accelerator harder, scanning the street names for Saint Louis. It was a far ways down, farther from the empty lot and a dilapidated park than Tim realized, and he turned the corner ruthlessly, tires skidding across the pavement.

They pulled up to the Curtis' and Tim stopped the car beside the curb. He popped open the lighter and lit another cigarette. The windows weren't rolled down, so the smoke he exhaled traveled into Curly's nose, burning his nostrils.

Tim got out and slammed the door, the noise bouncing off the otherwise silent street. The cigarette clutched between his teeth, he spoke around it. "You wanna wait here? It won't take long."

Curly shrugged, not caring as Tim sauntered through the dead grass and up the walkway. He reached the front door and knocked on it, the tender skin of his broken knuckles stinging, standing there for a minute before it opened.

Darry's face was pixellated by a screen of mesh, his frame filling up the doorway. He slipped outside to the porch. Taller than both the Shepard boys, he had the body of a purebred athlete, giving him a stern appearance to the contrast of Tim's slight frame.

"What're you doing here?" he asked, his eyes traveling from Tim's to the outline of his brother in the car.

"Gotta ask you a favor," Tim answered, "if you're up for it."

"Up for what?"

Tim picked at the end of his Marlboro, a dusting of ash falling through the cracks of the wooden floorboards. "My gang's going to war with the Kings," he exhaled.

"Don't know if I'd be of much help, Shepard." Darry crossed his arms over his chest and looked behind him and into the house, the line between his eyebrows deepening. Distant sounds of conversation and laughter drifted through the screen door and outside.

"You'd be enough. Curly's gonna talk to some guys and see if they're interested. It's all or nothing, man."

"That's what I'm trying to understand." For a second, Darry looked as if he was about to ask for his own cigarette, and then chose not to.

Tim pursed his lips and scratched the back of his neck, not sure how to broach the next topic, and thought, _to hell with it._ "I, ah, also wanted to say thanks for helping Curly when I wasn't around. It was fucking messy."

"It was," Darry echoed. "We just can't lose no one else, you know? After the last rumble…" he trailed off.

"You won't."

After Tim asked Darry to spread the word out, they shook hands and he walked back to the idling car and got in. They drifted back onto the street and drove for a minute in complete silence before Tim flicked the radio on. The static was loud, and Curly bit the inside of his cheek hard enough to taste blood to stop from thinking. Although his lungs were full of air, he felt as if he was drowning, and as they merged onto Peterson, he asked if they could stop for lunch.

They ended up at the small Dairy Dream off the highway, sitting at one of the picnic tables underneath the awning. A chill was in the air, the wind picking up, and the younger Shepard picked at his burger and fries gingerly. He was a little disappointed that Tim hadn't asked him if he'd wanted to join in on the conversation, considering his own brother was the gang's leader, but didn't bring it up. This sure as hell wasn't the time or place to discuss girly bullshit like feelings, and he was pretty certain Tim didn't have any.

Tim took a sip of his soda, thinking back to what Darry had said all those days ago - _you ever think about the future, what might happen to him if something happens to you? _- and set his drink down. Curly, with a fry halfway to his mouth, swallowed it dry and said, "What?"

"You mind talking to some guys, see if they're interested?" Tim suggested, leaning back, his palms flat on the wooden bench. "We don't have long, and we're gonna need all the help we can get. This ain't gonna be no fucking walk in the park, kid."

"Fine," Curly said, resisting the temptation to add that no, he wasn't a kid.

Behind Tim, cars passed on the highway, and to anyone looking out their windows right then the scene would've appeared normal: just two brothers having a simple discussion over burgers and fries, except the hard, guarded-off expression on their faces in the cold sunlight gave reason to believe their words were anything but innocent.


	10. The Coward, Part One

_I looked into your eyes  
__and I saw a reflection  
__of a coward that you and I both hate very much._

By the time he was fifteen, Pete MacIntosh had tagged along on enough gang assignments to know that everything wasn't as it seemed. Half the time the people his brother dealt drugs to would not be home, and if they were, they were nice enough to offer a beer or a hit of whatever Wade Hamilton had smuggled in from Texas.

To Pete, dealing was more fascinating than it was exciting, and one of the foundational reasons why he respected his older brother so much. He couldn't understand why the leader of the Shepard gang - Tim - treated his own blood like shit under his shoe - except his sister, who had a reputation as bad as her trucker's mouth - and was curious as to why his brother hadn't taken over the gang while Tim was incarcerated.

Now Tim Shepard was back on the streets, back for revenge, and Pete clutched the heater to his side a little tighter. Not only was it one of the first times he'd been given an assignment to do by himself but it was important, and he couldn't help being nervous, more so, Nick pointed out earlier, than he should've been.

It was the middle of the night and the city was black, the few streetlamps offering pale strips of light as he passed under them. He scowled, wishing that his brother hadn't refused to let him borrow the truck. The seats, stained with Wade's blood from the week before, were a grisly sight to whoever was unfortunate enough to be sitting in the cab.

Shepard's territory took up most of the neighborhood that border-lined downtown, along with a few side streets, and Pete jogged down each one, his breath coming out in white puffs. The metal of the gun felt heavier in his sweaty palms than it did when Wade gave it to him that afternoon, like it wasn't supposed to be there, but he ignored the thought and shoved it into the waistband of his jeans.

He was surprised at how easy it was to find the street. It jutted out from an alleyway smelling of cat piss and cheap alcohol and ran in a straight line for five blocks and then took a left angle, and as he passed each house with their shades pulled and no lights on, his muscles were burning and he was having trouble thinking straight.

His tongue was sticking to the roof of his dry mouth, and he was sure that if he ran into anyone, whoever they were, he'd shoot them without a second glance. Gritting his teeth, he pulled the gun out and clutched it to the side of his abdomen, eyes scanning for the number Wade'd forced him to soon as he saw the four digits imprinted on the white paint of a mailbox half a block farther down, he could've thrown up out of pure shock.

He slowed his pace when he approached the dimly-lit house and swallowed, footsteps heavy on the old wood of the front porch. He could see bodies moving through the curtains, slivers of yellow light slipping onto the dry grass, and raised his hand to the door. Before he could knock, however, it swung open and he was left staring into a pair of black eyes.

xxx

Curly had been watching the kid since he'd shown up on the front lawn.

Tim was in their bedroom upstairs, had been since they'd come home from Dairy Dream hours before, and Angela… Angela was at Sylvia's or something. The beers made his memory foggy, and he stared at the kid - his face was familiar, like Curly'd seen him around school or at the drag races, but he couldn't place it to a particular name.

"You need somethin'?"

"You Tim Shepard?" The kid lifted his chin as he said this, a hint of defiance and an Irish accent on the edge of his words.

"That's what they call me," Curly lied, and he grinned. "But the girls, they refer to me as the -"

Just then, Tim came into view, shirtless and hovering over Curly's shoulder.

"Who's this?" he asked, grabbing the back of Curly's shirt and shoving him aside, out of the doorway and behind him instead. His gaze was fixed on the gun tucked at the stranger's side. He couldn't tell if it was loaded or not, and this pissed him off because the last thing he needed was for him or Curly to get shot, for fuck's sake.

"Pete MacIntosh," the kid answered, his voice clipped. He couldn't have been older than Curly, but at the last name Tim's blood ran cold. He'd heard of a MacIntosh before, Nick, who was Wade Hamilton's second-in-command. The guy was a heavy drug dealer and user when he wasn't on the street, ruthless and had enough charm in his remaining brain cells to escape one murder rap after another.

"You get lost? This ain't your side of town," Tim said.

"So what? I can go wherever I want."

"Oh, yeah? Then why the fuck don't you get the hell outta here?"

Curly swore under his breath at his brother's sudden stupidity. There was a goddamn _heater _a foot away from him and Tim wasn't moving an inch. He just stood there glaring, like if he did so hard enough the kid would get the message and leave. But nothing was that simple, Curly was beginning to realize, because when it came down to it, Tim would have the last say. Always had, always would.

Without another word, Pete brought his arms up so that the barrel of the gun was in Tim's line of vision. His thumb moved over the trigger, and there was a clicking noise as the chambers rotated, a bullet slipping into the empty slot. "You sure you wanna do this?"

Tim scoffed, and before he had the chance to change his mind, he lunged for Pete, cuffing him over the head. The gun flew into the house while being knocked out of Pete's hand, and then they were on the ground, rolling over each other. Pete tried to fight back, but his energy was drained, he was too weak to give back any solid punches. Within a matter of seconds Tim had him pinned to the ground and was yelling to Curly, asking if he was okay, if he could hand him the gun.

Curly nodded, his ears ringing, and picked up the discarded heater. He crossed the threshold and Tim grabbed the gun from his hands, doing something to it too fast before putting it to Pete's temple. Pete had pulled himself up off the ground and was now leaning against the porch railing, breathing hard, a trickle of blood coming out of his mouth.

"He's gonna come after you," he warned, amused at how Tim frowned_. _"He sent me out to do it, start the war. I was supposed to fucking _shoot _you, an' everything." He motioned this last part with his hands, gave a short laugh, and then stopped, blood choking off his words as it dripped down his chin. Curly thought Pete was, and looked, insane - his face was bloody, and his eyes, half-open, followed Tim's every move.

"I've got it two-to-one that the fucker ain't even prepared. What'd you say to that, Curl?" Tim was mad, and almost never swore when he was because, he'd told Curly once, that it was a waste of air - he couldn't get the _shits _and_ fucks_ and _damns _out fast enough.

He moved his gaze to his brother's, and his eyes were two black holes, anger burning in them. Curly'd rarely seen Tim this upset, just a handful of times, and the last time he could remember it was when their father up and left, and that was well over several years ago.

"He sure ain't," Curly said, the words thick on his tongue. He looked to his brother for guidance, but his head was turned, already hunting for the next best thing. Tim barked something at Pete, who nodded, and then, surprisingly, backed off the porch and disappeared into the night. Once Pete's footsteps faded down the street, he bent over and swept up the objects that had fallen to the ground - and Curly noticed as they moved into the light that they were bullets. And then they were gone, just like that, into Tim's jeans pocket, along with the heater.

Roughly, he made a noise in the back of his throat and brushed Curly aside and went into the house, acting as if his brother hadn't been there to see what he'd done, not at all.

Curly grabbed his arm, though, and begged, "Wait."

Tim stopped halfway down the hall. He turned his head, inclined it to the right. "What, you need a fucking replay? You were right-the-goddamn-there."

"The bullets… you took them out. Why?"

"There're a lot of things you won't understand, Curl. Everything's more complicated than you'd think."

"Bullshit," Curly called, and Tim had to pry his hand off his arm. It dropped to Curly's side, and it was clear how much this affected him, having found himself once again in the dark. But Tim was beyond this, beyond feeling, and as he climbed the stairs, he told himself that Curly was better than him, that he wouldn't make the same mistakes. Because if he wasn't, God help them both, there was nothing else to hope for.

xxx

Since the afternoon they'd found Wade at the beach, Nick MacIntosh couldn't get his mind off what he'd seen. Greasing back his hair in the mornings, he'd stare at his hands, once covered in his best friend's blood, and cringe; other times, when it was dusk, he'd walk around his front yard, debating whether or not to attempt another cleaning of his truck's cab seats. Try as he might, to no avail the stains grew and grew, and the amount of cigarettes he lit overflowed the ashtray on the kitchen counter.

To him, the ongoing feud between Wade and Tim was just a part of Tulsa's underground history - it'd almost always existed, and wasn't the type of fight that could be brushed away and forgotten as the years went on. And at times, sure it was tenuous, keeping track of what was happening and what was going to happen, but he'd managed to do it, survive. The gang was his air, his food, and his shelter, and he'd forced his brother to adopt the same beliefs, who did so without a single argument. Coming from a second-generation Irish American household, expectations had been set low, and he'd done little to achieve beyond them.

It was around one in the morning when he heard the basement door open, and then the soft patter of feet down the concrete stairs that led into Nick's so-called bedroom. Half-asleep on his mattress that served more as a place to have sex than to sleep, he sat up and called, "Pete, that you?"

"Yeah," came Pete's muffled reply. In the dim shadows, Nick could see his brother messing around with the crates pushed alongside the cement bricks, where there was an endless supply of band-aids and disinfectants and dishrags. Next to the crates, there was a make-shift bathroom with no toilet, just an old sink and a showerhead attached to the wall. The faucet sputtered and then turned on, spraying cold water everywhere as Pete grabbed a rag and ran it under the stream.

He'd been hit mostly in the face, the largest amount of blood spilling from his nose, and he pressed the rag to it and held it there, breathing in through his mouth. His other wounds were minor scrapes and bruises, nothing that would cause much pain.

"Shepard's gang jump you?" Nick asked, and though Pete knew it was out of pure curiosity, he grimaced and felt the lie slip through his teeth.

"If you say it like that, then yeah," he said, "but it ain't anything I can't clean up myself."

And it wasn't, really - at least, that's what he kept telling himself.


	11. The Coward, Part Two

_And I got to thinking  
__if I don't go to hell when I die  
__then I might go to heaven,  
__but probably not._

The glass in Wade's hand broke as it hurtled against the wall.

There was blood on his fingers, and he shook the red drops off, then picked up the bottle of whiskey from the coffee table and took a long sip. The light bulb chain above him swung, creating a halo around his head, as if his hair was on fire, and it was all Pete could keep his eyes on.

"This is what happens when I let stupid kids like you into my gang," Wade was saying, though his voice was muffled from the rushing sound in Pete's ears. "You go in, thinkin' you's all high an' mighty, and fuck everything up. The only reason I haven't beat the shit outta you yet is 'cause Tim fucking Shepard obviously did."

Nick rested his palms on the back of the beat-up couch, where his brother was sitting, and sighed. Though it was eleven in the morning, the shades were pulled down over the windows of Wade's front room, which created a murky sort of darkness.

"So he screwed up," Nick said, "it was his first assignment."

It was rare for Nick to stick up for his brother, and rarer for Pete not to want it. Wade's eyes were unclear, and he narrowed them, his face low when he said, "What did you just say?"

"I mean Jesus, Wade, you told him to fuckin'_ shoot _somebody. You and me stole hubcaps when we was fifteen. How in the hell do you expect him to do that, kill somebody?"

Wade guffawed at this and took another sip, the alcohol burning his throat. "I don't." But for once, Nick had caught him off-guard, and he was silent.

"C'mon, Pete," Nick said, nudging his brother without another glance at their leader, "let's go," and Pete nodded, did what he was told.

On the drive home, Nick opened his mouth, and the words he wanted to say to Pete, should've said, suddenly seemed so useless. He swallowed and popped open the lighter instead, studied his brother from the corner of his tawny eyes. Although their facial features and heights were similar, Nick was the typical Irishman with pale skin and red hair, an identical replica of his father; while Pete was a darker shade of everything.

"Wade's an asshole," he finally said, slowing down to pull into the driveway. "If I was you, I would've done the same thing."

"Why're you telling me this?"

"Thought it was important." They sat there for a second in the cab, neither saying anything, and then the moment was broken, like every other one before it and all the ones that would come after, and they got out.

In the kitchen, Nick rummaged through the icebox for a beer and, finding none, sulked for his Parliaments and the back porch. His mind swirled with unfocused thoughts, and he lit cigarette after cigarette, the smoke doing nothing to calm his nerves down, until the ashtray was overflowing with butts and his fingertips were coated with ash.

xxx

Disdainful, Tim glanced once more at the menu in front of him before pushing it away.

Not even a week had passed since he'd gone to the West side and goddamn Randy'd asked if he could meet him at some restaurant so they could "talk". The kid was more lonely than he'd let on at first, one thing Tim knew about all too well, and if he thought about their relationship - which he sure as shit didn't - they'd almost became fucking _friends._

Randy's appearance was ghost-like. Once husky, he'd lost so much weight over the past year that his clothes now hung off his bony frame as he fiddled with the tattered ends of the old sweater he was wearing. His eyes, hollow and dark against his pale skin, momentarily lit up at the sight of the waitress across the room, thin lips cracking open and shut with each breath he took.

The situation was awkward and uncomfortable at best. Sensing their discomfort, the waitress came over with an intimidated smile and took their orders - nothing, unsurprisingly, for Randy, and a cup of coffee for Tim - and then disappeared into the kitchen.

Agitated, Tim tore the corners off a paper napkin, waiting for Randy to start explaining what the hell was going on. His patience was worn down to the wire and he glanced at the exit sign above the entrance, wishing he could leave.

"When's the next shipment coming in?" Randy asked, his voice a whisper as the waitress set the cup of steaming coffee down on the table. Tim reached for it and took a grateful sip, the bitter liquid burning his throat when it slid down.

"I don't know," he answered half-heartedly. "Next week, probably." _When I'll be dead_, he thought of adding, because who else was he supposed to complain to about this? Definitely not Curly. "Why is it so important?"

"My family's going out of town this weekend, to the lake house, and I'm having a party. I was wondering if you wanted to, uh, come."

"What, you asking me on a fucking date or some shit, Adderson? I ain't no fuckin' queer."

Color swam to Randy's cheeks for the first time in months, and he dropped his gaze to the table, where the shredded pieces of napkin lay. "No, it was just… I'm trying to be friendly, is all."

"Yeah, well I don't do friendly or parties with the likes of you."

"Fine, then forget it."

"Aye-fucking-aye, captain."

While Tim finished his coffee, he let himself, for a few seconds, feel pity for Randy. His best friend was dead, and he would live the rest of his life depending on alcohol or women or some drug that would never bring him the closure he needed, but it wasn't like it was Tim's fault that things were like this. He was just the drug dealer, the guy someone desperate enough for an escape went to when there was nothing else to run towards, and with this Randy had overestimated the tireless hours it would take to gain the gang leader's trust and respect and, therefore, had backed himself into an unforgiving corner.

It was a quarter past twelve when they left the warmth of the restaurant for the cold November air outside. Randy stood under the awning, not yet ready to go home to an empty house, as Tim lit a cigarette on the curb, flicking a bit of ash into the gutter.

He hadn't told Curly where he was going that morning, and Curly hadn't asked, just shoveled more cereal into his mouth like he hadn't even heard the front door shut. He was hung-over, something Tim'd tried again and again to ignore, though the thought continuously nagged at the edges of his brain.

After a long pause, Randy cleared his throat. "You know where to find me," he said, and Tim turned his head away to exhale a puff of smoke, wishing he didn't.


	12. Uncertainty and Lust

A/N: This chapter is rated M for adult content.

* * *

_How do I end up this way?  
A constant knot in my gut  
tied with uncertainty and lust  
a classic case, I suppose  
a haunted man who can't outrun his ghosts  
they're in my skin, in my bones._

For the next three days, Curly did nothing but go to school and eat what little food there was in the house. He was developing insomnia - he couldn't sleep next to Tim anymore, trading the comfort of their bed for the lumpy cushions of the couch in the den. The last time he'd talked to his brother was Sunday night, after he'd taken the bullets out of Pete MacIntosh's gun and was standing at the bottom of the staircase, eyes distant, voice cold and detached.

_There're a lot of things you won't understand,_ he'd said, and Curly'd gone from feeling hopeful to hopeless. His own brother was shoving him away just when they needed each other the most, into a neat little box in the back of his mind where it could stay there, feelings disregarded. This was Tim's way of dealing with the world, and when the spiraling mess with Wade got too complicated, too bloody, he'd run away before it could catch up to him.

Curly was reminded of what he'd said to Ponyboy at school, only two weeks ago, when they were talking about Tim, how he'd take care of himself. _Always have, always will, _he'd answered, and Ponyboy shifted at this, like he didn't believe him.

Now, he thought, could his friend have seen through the lie? Seen how each time Tim went away, the sentences got longer, the phone calls and letters rarer? How Angela got moodier, wearing her clothes a size too small, her makeup heavier? How the hole in Curly's chest grew and grew, until he was sure his heart and lungs should've fallen through it? And then, on those long days when he'd sit outside the penitentiary in McAlester in the Charger, waiting for his brother to walk out as a free man, he'd get so nervous that he'd roll down the car window because he couldn't breathe? How, once they'd come home, Tim'd act like he'd never left it, like things were the same, when they really weren't; and the hole in Curly would get so small, so foolishly small, like it wasn't there at all, until Tim said or did something that made him realize that the hole would never go away, that sinking feeling that made him wake up in the middle of the night, wanting to vomit?

It seemed like months had passed since he'd last seen his friend, so he made a point of stopping Ponyboy in the hallway on Thursday. Curly had to raise his voice over the drone of slamming lockers and after-school chatter, but it worked - he informed Pony of the party Tim was going to that Friday, on the West side_. Where?_ he'd asked, and Curly said, _Randy Adderson's, _and at this Ponyboy's face paled, his mouth twisted. He'd stammered out an excuse of how he had to go and left the building without another word, something Curly was - more often than not - getting used to.

On Friday night, Curly - rummaging in a kitchen cabinet for a water glass - didn't hear the throat being cleared behind him or the scraping of the chair legs as one was dragged out from the table. He was too preoccupied to see his brother's face reflected in the windowpane as he stood over the sink, water rushing from the tap and into the glass.

"Goin' out tonight?"

Curly turned the tap off and shrugged, a shrug that said _so what if I am. _He leaned against the counter, eying his brother coolly, who had placed his pack of cigarettes on the table and was spinning it around with his fingers. Slouched over in his chair, he looked like a little kid who hadn't gotten what he wanted for Christmas and was pouting about it.

"The party's gonna be huge."

"Really."

Curly was trying to sound as disinterested as possible. The air felt thick and it was uncomfortable; their conversation was another thing being forced these days, and to be honest, he'd been looking forward to the copious amounts of alcohol and girls he'd snag, but Tim was ruining his night just like he ruined everything else.

With anger building in his veins, Curly tightened his fingers around the glass and breathed in, wanting to confront Tim and say all the words he couldn't to before, stand up for himself for once, though he knew that somewhere inside of him deep, deep down, he didn't have the strength to do it, at least not now.

"Is Curtis coming?"

"I doubt it."

"You want a ride, then?"

Tim got up from his seat, took out his car keys from his jacket pocket, and passed his cigarettes off to Curly on the way out of the room. The sound of his footsteps drifted from the dark hallway and back to where Curly stood in the yellow light of the kitchen, the distance between them having never felt so far away.

xxx

As usual, Tim was right; by the time they'd parked the car a ways down from Randy Adderson's house, people were everywhere, highlighted by the glowing red tip of cigarettes on the front porch or the soft rays of inside light moving across the front lawn.

Once inside, Tim moved his way straight through the crowd and into the kitchen for a beer, while Curly stood in the foyer, unable to move his gaze from the elaborate furnishings pushed against the walls - presumably to make more room for the guests - and expensive paintings just waiting to be ruined by a spilt drink or stolen. From the corner of his eye, he noticed a large crystal vase on the coffee table in the next room, and he felt that familiar itch in his fingers to taint it, to wrap it under his jacket and keep it there, against his burning skin. To have something finally belong to himself that hadn't already been used and then thrown aside by his brother: girls, cars, money.

But for all his faults, there was one thing that Tim Shepard wasn't, and that was stupid. Breaking into that liquor store a year ago was all Curly's doing, and his responsibility to own up to it. That was why he'd told Wade Hamilton where Tim was, why he'd - involuntarily - started the war. Because nothing ever changed, nothing ever _would_ change, and he was tired of sitting on the sidelines, waiting for something to happen that didn't.

xxx

He was sure he'd mistaken her for someone else. Surely she wouldn't be sitting at the top of the stairs, fingers shaking to keep the cup pressed to her mouth, a long red line that dragged down her face at a crooked angle, as if she was trying not to frown.

He hadn't seen much of her after the funeral and hadn't planned a grand reunion since he'd been home from McAlester simply because he didn't want to interact with his past, enter another mess he wouldn't be able to get out of, cope with all the hurt he felt inside each and every day. She'd written him a few times while he was away, letters he'd never opened until it was dark enough in his cell that he wasn't able to make out the words clearly, until those three words, _thinking of you,_ didn't matter. It was easier, then, to push the emotions away, to pretend they weren't there, but now, in the light, it was nearly impossible to run.

There was a hallway to his left, and he walked down it, ignoring the pull at the bottom of his jeans as she tugged at the material, the calling of his name. Her heels clicked on the hardwood as she followed him like they both knew she would, and when he stopped at the farthest door, he turned to her.

"What the hell're you doing here, Sylvie?" he asked, his voice low. He was the only one that called her that,_ Sylvie_; Dally had preferred Sylvia, but Tim had always liked the way it sounded on his tongue as the letters rolled off, how it was uncomplicated and sweet and nothing like her.

She crossed her arms over her chest, ignorant or pissed, he could never tell with her. "I'd like to ask you the same, Timothy."

He smirked in the darkness, reached out to play with the hem of her shirt. It was low-cut, one he hadn't seen before, and one he'd especially love to toss onto the floor. "You know you're not supposed to wear white after Labor Day, right?"

"Like I care."

His fingers skimmed over the lower part of her stomach, a barely-there touch, but it got the reaction he wanted out of her: She tensed, confidence faltering, her breath hitched.

"Fuck you," she hissed, though her voice trembled out through her teeth, and his smirk transformed into a smile, an expression that didn't fit his face. She was being hostile, and he fucking loved it, wanted more of it, wanted nothing, not even air, between her body and his.

He snaked his other hand around her waist, pulling her into him so his mouth was in her hair, hers resting on his chest, right where his heart would be if what all that shit people said was true, if he really had one. Their bodies fit together in a way that her's and Dallas' never did - easily - and he ran his thumb over her cheekbone, brushing away a stray piece of hair that had fallen into her face.

"You're such a dirty girl, Sylvie," he said, his lips at her earlobe, his teeth nibbling at the sensitive skin there. "It's a goddamn shame you'll have to settle for little ol' me." And then his mouth was on hers, his tongue pressing her lips open, and she gasped at the contact, pressed her hips into his for more. She tasted familiar - all smoke and no fire - and he moved his hands up her shirt.

She arched her back, exhaling his name, and then it was no longer a name, it was a plea, a beg. "We can't… not here…"

He ignored her, his lips trailing down her neck and into the hollow of her clavicle, his teeth tugging down her shirtsleeves to expose her naked shoulders, bite marks left on her flushed skin. Just as he was about to pop open the first button on her blouse - knowing her, there weren't many she'd closed in the first place - she pulled away.

"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?" Tim complained, leaning his head against the cold wall behind him. He clenched his jaw, suddenly hating her and how she fucked with his head, how she made it harder for him to breathe when he already couldn't, and he was tired, so, _so_ tired of it all.

"I still love him, Tim."

She said this as if she were confessing her sins, and he was reminded of all those hours spent at the church up the street from his house when he'd done the same - when he'd sat in a small, dark room and lied to the priest, giving the vaguest details of whatever trouble he'd gotten into that weekend, and been told to pray for his soul to not be damned, to repent for all the crimes he'd committed.

_But he never gave a fuck about you,_ I _did._ The words were on the backs of his teeth, fighting their way onto his tongue and through the small space of his parted lips, and he knew that he should've said them, and if he wasn't a coward then he would've said them, but all that came out was, "Jesus Christ, it's been more than a goddamn _year, _Syl! When're you going to get it through your skull that he's fucking _dead_?"

Her cheeks burned, and she made a noise at the back of her throat, a whimpering sound, as if she'd just been slapped, and he immediately regretted it. Her eyes were glistening, and then it all happened very fast.

One second her hands were on his chest, shoving him away, and in the next he was up against the wall and once again her lips were on his and she was saying that she was sorry, so sorry, but didn't he understand that she couldn't do this to Dally, she just couldn't? And he heard himself say yeah, he understood, even though he didn't, he never would, and she gave him a peck the cheek, squeezed his hand, told him to take care. And then her heels were clicking on the hardwood, carrying her away from him, and he slid down the wall and onto the floor with his heart stuck halfway up his throat.

xxx

The cigarette in Curly's mouth tasted stale, though he lit it anyway, wanting to get the grassy taste of the whiskey out of his throat. It was a little after midnight, and he'd slipped outside to have a second to himself, the night cold and silent. Most of the party had dwindled down to a few guests that were either all over each other in the upstairs bedrooms or passed out on armchairs or couches. He guessed that Tim was of the former; the host, Randy, was of the latter.

Large Oak trees were plotted around the patio in the backyard, and between their branches he could see the faintest pattern of stars scattered across the black sky. It was a peculiar sight, considering that the only thing he could see from his bedroom window was the faint glow of the streetlamp on the corner.

If Ponyboy were here, he would've said something poetic about how beautiful it was, not caring how stupid or frilly it sounded, and Curly would've mumbled in agreement. But his friend was at his own house, sleeping away the darkest hour of the night, and as his second cigarette died out, the door behind him opened and a shadow stepped onto the deck.

Even in the dim light, he could tell it was Sylvia. Her hair was mussed; she had flakes of mascara on her cheeks, the buttons of her shirt were in the wrong holes, and she looked at Curly with pure disgust. "You're brother's a fucking asshole," she said, her voice cracking on the last syllable, and he grinned.

"So I've heard. What'd he do this time?"

"I don't wanna talk about it."

"Alright." He shook out two more Marlboros from his pack - fuck it if they tasted bad - and lit them both, passing one to her, his hanging from the corner of his mouth, the paper soggy on his tongue. That was the thing about brothers: it killed you if you had one, and killed you if you didn't.


	13. November Fifth

_Someone's deciding whether or not to steal  
__he opens a window just to feel the chill  
__he hears that outside a small boy just started to cry  
__'cause it's his turn, but his brother won't let him try._

"_You sure you want to do this?"_

_The voice spoke from behind him, and Tim cursed halfheartedly, rubbing his hands together to keep them warm. All he could think about were the birthdays Dallas Winston wouldn't celebrate and that he'd forgotten his jacket in Wade's car - parked three blocks away - and that it was too fucking cold for November fifth. _

_The house he and Wade Hamilton stood in front of was completely absence of light, had been for the past two days. Wade was the one who'd brought up the idea in the first place, breaking-and-entering, over a pitcher of beer and a pack of Lucky Greens, something Tim had never been in dire need to do. _

_It'd only been a few weeks since the rumble and he'd kept a pretty low profile, told his gang to do the same. To him, stealing was like sex: it was pure instinct. The more he did one or the other, the easier he opened locked doors or windows, found a woman's curves in the night, although he still didn't know why he felt so uneasy - apprehensive, like he had to keep looking behind himself, just to make sure no one was there that wasn't supposed to be. _

_Maybe it was the way Angela had looked at him that evening before he'd gone out, as if she knew about what he was going to do, and what would happen to him if he'd get caught. When they were young, he used to tease her about her eyes, how she could see into his soul if he wasn't already damned to hell, and she'd giggle, tell him that wasn't true, and he'd been heartbroken enough to believe her. _

_But it'd been years since he'd told her that, told her _anything_, and now he was older and was supposed to be smarter, tougher, although his insides felt hollowed out, like there was nothing to keep him from making mistake after mistake. That was what grief did to a person: it sucked them in and spit them out until all that was left were red eyes and slurred words and an ache so raw that he'd choke on his own saliva trying to breathe. _

"_Yeah, I am. Let's go," Tim said. It was one in the morning and they needed to be out of there faster than it'd taken them to arrive - a whole fucking half-hour, since they'd taken a wrong turn halfway through town and, not knowing the area, had to double-back. He heard the click of Wade's lighter and the jimmying of a doorknob, felt a rush of stale air hit his face as they stepped inside the house._

_There was a muted _thud, thud_ as they slipped off their shoes and left them by the door. The couple that owned the house was of old money, and as he passed through each room in his stockingfeet, Tim was amazed at the detailed woodwork of built-in bookshelves, family photographs lining the walls. Moonlight slid in through the cracked blinds, enough so that everything was bathed in an off-white glow. _

_After they'd scavenged most of the entire downstairs and found little to nothing of value, Wade had gone upstairs in search of jewelry, and the floorboards above the foyer groaned under his weight. _

_Tim rounded the corner and nudged open the door in front of him with his toe, entering a small study full of dark polished wood and milk-white glass sculptures, the biggest a vase, which rested on the desk in the middle of the room. The vase was cold to the touch and as he reached for it, his sock caught on the snagged edge of a loose nail poking out from one of the supporting legs of the desk, and it all happened very fast: he was standing and then he wasn't and the vase flew out of his hands and glass was everywhere, in his hair and on his clothes and scattered all across the ground._

_Over the sound of his heartbeat pounding in his ears, he heard Wade's feet smacking the stairs and then the other gang leader was standing in the doorway, his jeans pockets overflowing with necklaces and rings, shouting because it was the only thing he really knew how to do - and suddenly the whole night seemed so ridiculous to Tim that he wanted to laugh, although he didn't, just pulled himself to his feet and bit down on the inside of his cheek at the sight of all the blood that was dripping from the large chunk of glass stuck in his forearm._

_Wade was silently fuming; he didn't say a word until they were outside and Tim had a lit cigarette in his mouth, trying to swallow down the smoke so he wouldn't feel the glass digging into his skin each time he moved. _

"_What the fuck was that?" Wade yelled, "you tryna get us caught? Christ, you got blood on everything!"_

"_It was an accident, man. Shit happens."_

"_Yeah, well 'shit' don't happen to people like us, Shepard."_

_Tim sucked on his cigarette to the filter and lit another one immediately, felt anger - the slow, dark kind that made him see red - spread through his veins from Wade's attitude and bile shove its way up his throat from the bottle of whiskey he'd finished off before he'd left his house. The guy was a fucking hypocrite; he said one thing and did another. _Do as I say, not as I do.

_A dog began to bark loudly, the noise jarring and unwelcome, and Wade kicked at the pebbles by the curb, said something about how he was going back to the car because it was too cold to be standing outside, how Tim could finish his goddamn cigarette on the ride home. _

_And whether it was the whiskey or the chilled air spreading into his wound that made his numb body alert and warm, all he knew was that by the time he saw the red and blue lights poking through the tree branches, he had let the guilt of Dallas's death, of what he'd done to himself, to his family all these years - consume him whole. _

xxx

His knuckles white, Tim clutched the edge of his seat as another wave of nausea overtook him.

He'd woken up in the backseat of his car an hour earlier, hung-over and disoriented. The drive home from Randy Adderson's had been a blur of white dash lines and radio static, and he'd pulled over to the shoulder of the highway to vomit twice.

The last thing he could remember from last night was Sylvia walking away, and then falling down, and the ceiling suddenly, obnoxiously, too far away. If Dallas had been there, he would've explained to Tim what'd happened afterward with a fucking smirk on his face, how this-leads-to-this-leads-to-this, but Dallas was rotting in the ground - _when're you going to get it through your skull that he's fucking _dead_? - _and Tim closed his eyes, not wanting to see yellow and red spew out of his mouth and onto the dirt.

After it was over, he got out of his car and leaned on the door for support. The sky above him was dark; a storm was coming, and the wind was sharp and bitter on his nostrils as he inhaled. It was ironic, in a bizarre kind of way, he thought, as he squinted up at all those clouds, how, on Dallas' birthday, even the weather was shit, like Mother Nature had had enough and gotten sick of him, too.

His hands were shaking for some reason, and he shoved them deep inside his jacket pockets and stared up at the house in front of him, the only house he'd ever lived in long enough to consider it a home. Memories flashed through his brain, some parts distorted, as if he was looking at them through water, while other parts were clear as glass.

He remembered the day his father left, how the sun had never before felt so relentlessly hot as it beat down on his head; how the imprint of his father's palm was visible on Angela's cheek, red against the sudden pallor of her face as her eyes - Betty Boop-like in their hugeness, blue and naive, looked up to him because she needed something from him, something he'd never be able to give her no matter if he died trying; and how, as he asked Curly to _go get her some ice er somethin', wouldja_?, the pain he felt was so unreal his vision was unfocused, it crushed his lungs until he couldn't breathe, until he couldn't see anything but the back of his brother's jacket as he did as he was told.

He'd reached a point in his life where there was no turning around, any use in asking for forgiveness. He couldn't live with Curly hating him, but couldn't live without that hatred, either, because it was his oxygen, his food, similar to how an engine needed gasoline to run, the one thing that would stay consistent when everything else didn't.

The wind picked up, then, rustling the few leaves on the ground as the first drops of rain fell, coloring the dirt a dark brown. But the yard in front of him was quiet, too quiet, as if something was wrong, and when he turned around, finally realizing what it was - what was making his heart pound against his ribs - the gun was already pointed at his head.


	14. Long Ago Disappeared

_In the silence it became so very clear  
that you had long ago disappeared,  
I cursed myself for being surprised  
that this didn't play like it did in my mind._

"_Are you fucking crazy? Put that down! What the fuck d'you think you're_ doing_?" _

_Lithe fingers curled around the gun's hilt, caught in the act. "Fuck you, I wanna see it. It's just a goddamn glock, Tim -" _

_There was the sound of a body being shoved up against the wall and a crying out of pain, the feel of cold metal on burning-hot skin, and then the first voice, lower, older: "Don't you ever fucking touch that thing again, you hear me?" _

"_Yeah." _

"_Never?"_

"_Yeah, never, I swear." _

xxx

"Curl…" Tim said, because it was all he could choke out, this one word that held no meaning now.

He was in denial, trapped in a hellish nightmare that had somehow turned into reality. His throat was burning, his palms clammy with sweat, and he wiped his hands on his jeans, tried to keep them steady because, Jesus Christ, this wasn't happening - it couldn't be, Curly would never do something like this. But it was, and he was.

Time had stopped; neither brother moved or even blinked. Curly's arms were raised in the general direction of where Tim stood on the front walk, his hands wrapped so tight around the gun's metal hilt that, later, it would leave marks on his skin - the same gun Pete MacIntosh had nearly shot Tim with. Nearly shot_ Curly_ with.

The sky was pressing down on them, the raindrops - now little balls of cold hail - coming down harder, creating a sheet between them, and Tim realized, too late, that there_ always _would be something between them. His worry of the gang disintegrating, his fear of commitment, of feeling, of finally letting in that one person who'd wanted to understand his world, _him_, so, so badly…

"Put the gun down, Curly."

Curly's voice, loud in Tim's ears, echoed back, "No. You fucking _lied_ to me."

"What the fuck're you talking about?" Cautious, Tim stepped forward, put his hands above his head in an _I-didn't-do-it_ gesture, while his mind raced through all the places of where he'd have stored the bullets - someplace where Curly wouldn't guess to look - and came up with one place: the box under his bed that no one was allowed to touch, ever.

"When you got arrested," Curly started, and though he was under the porch's awning, his face looked wet, and Tim wondered, vaguely, if all he did was make people - his mother, Angela, Sylvia, and now his own brother - cry. "After you came home… it was like you were _God_ or something, and I was stupid, I thought things would go back to how it was, you putting shit back together, like it was that easy. When I got jumped, I thought 'this is it, he's gonna do somethin', he's gonna_ care_' and you didn't, you didn't fucking do _anything_, and it was a sure-as-shit move, me telling Wade you're out, but what the fuck was I supposed to_ do_? I was so mad…" He closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them they were pure black. Unforgiving.

"Then he tells me that _you're_ the one that got you'n'him arrested, _you're_ the one who wanted to rob that house in the first place, and I didn't believe him, said you'd never do somethin' like that," Curly continued, his voice starting to break, finally, under all the strain. "I thought you deserved it, me forgiving you. But you don't, you don't deserve me or Ang or nobody. You're fucking pathetic, Tim."

"I know," Tim said, and then repeated it, over and over in his head, _I know, I know, I know_. Because suddenly, there it was: that pain in his chest of his heart breaking for a thousand different reasons, now unraveling itself like a ribbon, coiled up for so long that it became a weight too heavy for his shoulders to carry. His face twisted in anguish, and he fought back a groan as the pain became larger, larger, and larger still, everything hurting.

Meanwhile Curly's body had gone slack against the porch railing, and he sucked in a breath, eyes stinging, in that moment wanting nothing more than to walk over to his brother, cover the amount of space between them that'd gotten so unapproachably wide. The muscles in his arms were aching to the pounding of his brain against his skull, and he lowered them to his sides; the gun, released from his fingers, fell to the ground.

"I just wanna know why, Tim," he said.

"I…" Tim's throat was raw as sandpaper, and he cleared it, trying to get the words out. "Wade brought up the idea, breaking-and-entering. I figured it was a good idea 'til the fuzz showed, and you're right, I told them - I told them every fucking thing because I wanted a fight as much as he did and I got it." _Can't you fucking see it?_ He thought. _We're the same person, me an' him. _Sometimes, especially now, he couldn't even tell the difference.

A yell built in his throat, and he coughed, clenching his jaw tight so no noise would escape. His blurred vision focused on some place above Curly's head, whose face was drained of color, and Tim felt as if he was looking at himself in a mirror, at last recognizing who the person staring back at him was. Because it wasn't his brother - it was a complete stranger, one he didn't recognize at all.

Curly's mouth ran dry, his insides frozen, his lungs constricting to the point where they burned. He was afraid to breathe, and his voice was hoarse when he asked, "Then what the fuck're we supposed to do now?"

"End the war with Wade, I guess."

"And if we don't win? What's gonna happen to us?"

"I don't -" Tim started, then shook his head. "I don't really fucking know."

xxx

Nick rapped his knuckles against the door and then eased it open, beams of light spilling across the carpet and into the dark bedroom.

"Yeah," Pete answered from the bed. He was - of all things - flicking his lighter on and off, the flames shadowing his face. His behavior had been off since they'd been at Wade's a good couple of days before, and Nick was getting tired of his brother's need to be on constant-guard. Though it made sense, considering what he'd done - or, more likely, _hadn't_ - it still didn't give him an excuse to mope around all the damn time.

"Get up. We're going to the warehouse for a meeting. Some of Shepard's guys keyed Wade's car."

Forty-five minutes later, they ended up on the outskirts of town, the truck's tires rolling across the train tracks. The hailstorm earlier that day had slowed down to a soft drizzle, and as the headlights swept across the muddy lot, highlighting none other than Wade's blue Ford - parked alongside the building - Pete's stomach flipped at the sight of it.

Nick rolled to a stop and cut the engine. They sat there for a second in silence, and then he asked, "You sure you wanna go in?" His eyes were on Pete's nose, which had swelled down considerably, the popped blood vessels having faded to a blue-green bruise the size of his fist.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Leave me alone," Pete said, getting out of the car before he was told to stay in the cab. For his brother being Wade's wingman, he could count on one hand the number of times he'd actually been inside the warehouse, and his memories of it were vague - dim lighting, a couch here, a carton of drugs there, waiting to be dealt or sold - and these images did not disappoint.

The only thing that'd changed, really, was the smell. The last time he'd been here, almost an entire year ago, the large room had been covered in a thick fog of weed and cigarette smoke. Now it had the lingering odor of fresh paint and gasoline.

Wade was standing in the center of the room, his arms folded across his chest, and as he heard the door slide shut, he turned to face them.

If he were a dog, he'd have been foaming at the mouth with rage. His hair was ungreased, a trademark that he rarely went without doing, and his face was pinched and flushed red, drunk-red. His teeth were bright against the contrast of his dark skin, and Pete noticed for the first time how straight and sharp they were, like shark's teeth, and he looked down at the floor.

"They keyed my car, MacIntosh," Wade was saying to Nick, "sons of bitches fuckin' keyed my goddamn _car. _I can't believe it! Tore up some other guys' shit too, slashed their tires. What are they, fuckin' dumb?"

It was a rhetorical question, but Nick answered anyways, because his contract was written in blood and because Wade expected him to be on his side, always and forever and after that. "Must be, thinkin' they can pull that kinda shit and get away with it," he said, though deep in his heart, part of him couldn't find the strength to believe in such a lie - Tim Shepard wasn't one to just let his own guys run around naked and wild. It was barbaric, ludicrous; it wasn't how this side of the world worked.

"We gotta find a way to end this, and soon. I can't fuckin' stand it anymore." Wade leaned his head back and examined the rafters above, like the answers to his problems were up there and all he had to do was squint his eyes and look for it, hard.

And as the words formed in Pete's mouth, as he stepped forward all on his own doing and said them out loud, everything, this night, suddenly felt too surreal to have happened to him at all.

xxx

"_Where'd ya learn how t'throw like that?"_

"_Dad taught me."_

_They were sitting on empty barrels at the junkyard, picking through the debris that the last storm had left. Even then, Curly's speech impediment was evident; he didn't say some of his letters right, drawling them out, and he talked so damn fast that sometimes Tim could only catch a word or two, a main idea, having to sum up the rest by himself. _

_Tim picked up a piece of glass and curled his fingers around it, aimed, and then threw his arm forward. The glass caught the sunlight as it sailed through the air, and he was transfixed on it, that shine he'd seen so little of. The closest he'd gotten to anything valuable was his mother's jewelry, and she'd seldom wear a necklace without having to make a fuss over it._

_Curly swung his legs back and forth, his heels hitting the tin with a rhythmic _bang bang bang._ The kid was restless. "You think he's coming back?"_

"_What do you care?"_

"_Really, Tim, c'mon."_

_Tim sighed, rolling his eyes. He took out his pocketknife and began to clean out the dirt from under his fingernails, trying to figure out an answer. "I dunno," he muttered finally, hating how his voice sounded like his brother's, all rushed together. "What d'you think?"_

"_I think he will… someday." It was depressing, Tim thought, that Curly sounded hopeful, and for a brief second, they locked eyes before he glanced away first, toward the path they'd crossed through hours before. The sun wouldn't set for another couple of hours, but his bones ached, like the summer heat had swallowed all of his energy and spit him out. _

"_We should go back soon," he said, clearing his throat. He flipped his knife closed and put it back into his pocket, then jumped off the barrel and into the dirt. This time, it wasn't the shock of his feet hitting solid ground that made him stumble; it was the aftershock, that split-second of having no control over your own body that always caused the panic in his chest to rise. _

_Curly frowned. "But, Tim…" he protested, still sitting on the barrel, now reaching for the hem of his brother's shirt. "We don't gotta be home till sunset. Can't we stay a little longer? Please?"_

"_No. Angie needs help with her homework or somethin'. I told Ma I'd help her."_

"_That's crap. Angie's in like,_ _first _grade_, Tim. God, they don't give homework that early."_

"_Can't you just listen to me for once? I said no."_

"_Fine." _

_Curly jumped off the barrel, dust flying everywhere. He was coated in it, actually, and noticing his brother staring at him, he puffed out his chest, like a bird ruffling its feathers, and glared. "What?"_

"_Nothin'." Tim shook his head and started to walk in the other direction, not waiting for Curly to catch up as he said, "Let's go." _

xxx

The memories were sudden and everywhere, a continuing onslaught of pain that wouldn't leave Tim the fuck alone. He'd left his jacket in the car, slung over the passenger seat, and was too drunk to want to go back and get it.

Of all places he'd ended up at the quarry, and had no desire to move from where he sat on the frozen ground, the cold seeping through his clothes and into his bones.

He was an introvert by nature, having built himself up as a lost dream, the kind of person that, when around, gave you the sense of wondering if you'd said or did the wrong thing - the kind of person you didn't want to be completely alone with. His self-being was a description drawn by others' opinions of him, enough that he didn't know who he was once he was without them. He could plainly see that there was a life he'd had before this night, a sort of rightness, and a life he'd have after it, one he was too much of a coward to face.

If anything, he deserved to feel like this: shitty, cold, pathetic…

_You're fucking pathetic_, his brother had said only hours ago, because, for once, Curly _was _right_. _From the day their father left, Tim had taken everything and everyone he'd known for granted, and now his hands were empty; he had nothing left, and in this nothingness there was suffering, and an emptiness so vast and vague it hurt his stomach to think about it. And though, years later, he would figure out a way to manage it - the pain - he'd still be disappointed when he reached the end of another bottle, lit up the last cigarette in the pack.

His lungs were heaving for air, and the sharp tips of dead grass bit into his palms as he placed them at his sides and titled his head back, looking up at the sky. The smog coming from the lower part of the city made it hard for him to make out the distant speckle of stars, or maybe it was from the hot tears in his eyes - cold as they rolled down his cheeks and then dribbled off his chin - but they were there, he was sure of it. It had just taken him, like everything else, a little too long to find.


End file.
